To Storm or Fire
by Stormfire76
Summary: The demigods have reached the House of Hades, but their problems have just begun. Annabeth and Percy must be rescued. The Doors of Death must be closed. Rome has to be stopped from destroying any chance of a future alliance, and the Great Prophecy must be fulfilled. Oaths will be kept, worlds will fall, and storm and fire will reach everyone and everything from Greece to Tartarus.
1. Part I

**A new story to ward off nostalgia for And Foes Bear Arms! Yay! ;)**

**Just so you guys know, my updates will be slower than they were for AFBA. School is starting, my life is getting crazy-busy, and I just don't have as much time to write as I did in the summer. :( But I'll try to update as often as possible because I'd really like to finish this up before House of Hades comes out. Might not happen, but a girl can dream, right? ;)**

**And I had this idea before I learned who Viria was, but I still feel like I should credit her because in her picture-story-comic-thing (don't know what else to call it :P) for Let's See How Far We've Come by Matchbox Twenty, she drew a headcanon of hers that is the entire premise for this story. (Hint: It features Leo.) I had the idea, and _then _I saw her art, but her art is the reason that I decided to act on the idea and write about it because I realized, "Hey! I'm not the only crazy person with this headcanon!" :P So yay for Viria! Check out that girl's fanart because it is _amazing_.**

**Oh, by the way, the title is a reference to the line from the prophecy, not to my username. And my username isn't a reference to the prophecy; it's from something else entirely. Just if anyone was wondering. ;)**

**Sorry about the long author's note! And enjoy! :)**

**Disclaimer: Fifth story on this website, and I still have to do these things. Well, I'm done trying to make them witty and interesting! From now on, there will be _one _disclaimer, and one only!**** I will have an answering machine for my disclaimer! XP**

**Here it is: "Hello, dearest readers. I do not own PJO. I am not Rick Riordan. Not male. Don't have gray hair. Don't have a book published. I claim rights to nothing except the plot." *pause* "This message will be repeated for each chapter. Please leave a message after the tone."**

* * *

**Part I**

* * *

Percy and Annabeth were still alive, at least. Leo hung onto that thought as he stared through the Doors of Death at them.

Monsters surrounded his friends, stretching out for miles beyond his view. The only thing protecting them was one of Percy's signature hurricanes, but Leo had no idea where the son of Poseidon was getting the _water_ to make a barrier that powerful, let alone the _strength_. He and Annabeth looked completely exhausted. There was no time to waste.

"Can you guys climb out of there?" he yelled.

Percy lifted his head. The guy had always looked alive and full of energy – a little like Leo himself – but now his eyes were dim. He shook his head. "Pull . . . of Tartarus . . . too strong. . . ." he managed to shout.

"Okay!" Then Leo turned to his friends. "I'll be right back," he told them. "If any monsters break through Percy's hurricane. . . . I don't know. Just stop them somehow."

"What are you going to do?" Hazel asked him. But Leo was already running out of the House of Hades.

The _Argo II_ was waiting just outside. He didn't hesitate for a second. He just hopped onto the rope ladder and started climbing. Once he reached the deck, he ran downstairs into his cabin, where he had laid out supplies, just in case. He stuffed three bottles of water, a canteen of nectar, and about twenty granola bars into his tool belt. Then he strapped a Celestial bronze sword to his waist and rushed to the helm.

"Does it work?" he asked Festus anxiously. "The _project_?"

Festus's teeth clicked and whirred. _Of course it does_.

Leo breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. All right, then. Festus, we're going inside!" The dragon clicked and whirred some more. "Yes, through the doors," Leo said impatiently. "What did you think? No, I don't care if you have to break the doorframe a little. We _need_ to get in there!"

Festus must have picked up on Leo's urgency. Without another protest, he turned towards the doors. Leo toggled the control stick on his Nunchuk and shook his Wii remote. The _Argo II_ zoomed towards the House of Hades, and with a crack that must have echoed through all of Greece, it shoved its way inside.

"Leo!" the others shouted in amazement. "What are you _doing_?"

Leo didn't waste time with words. He just tilted his Wii remote and yanked a couple levers, so that the ship faced the Doors of Death head-on. The pull of Tartarus was pretty strong, even from this distance, but the ship was unfazed. Leo had been counting on that.

"Percy! Annabeth!" he yelled. "I'm going to get you guys out of there! Just hold on!"

Annabeth was barely conscious, and all of her remaining strength was focused on keeping her hand plastered to her shoulder so that as little blood as possible leaked out. Percy looked just as bad off, if not worse – his injury was at his side, not his shoulder – but he somehow managed to hear Leo. He squinted through the pain and saw the bronze dragon figurehead.

"No, Leo!" he shouted. "You can't get us both! The Doors have to be closed from both sides! I have to stay behind!" Leo could tell what Percy was thinking. He didn't _want_ to be stuck in Tartarus forever – he'd been waiting for his happily-ever-after with Annabeth for too long – but he also didn't want anyone else to be. If Leo pulled him out now, Percy was sure he wouldn't be brave enough to go back to Tartarus a second time by choice. But in the son of Poseidon's opinion, his sacrifice was the only way to close the Doors. And everyone knew they _had_ to be closed.

However, Leo knew that there _was_ another way, and he wasn't going to let Percy die because he cared too much about his friends. The guy deserved his happily-ever-after. He'd earned it. And Leo was going to make sure he got it.

"What was that?" he asked. "I can't hear you, Percy! It's too loud!"

Percy's hurricane was starting to die out. The first monsters were slipping through the cracks, and Leo knew that as soon as one got to them, Percy and Annabeth would be finished. So he didn't wait another second. He punched a couple buttons and muttered a couple commands. A giant grabber arm shot out of the hull just underneath Festus and pushed all the way to Tartarus.

Leo's tongue stuck out as he frowned in concentration. "A little to the right," he muttered. "Farther. . . . No, not _that_ far. . . ." He knew he only had one chance to get this right. Another try, and the monsters would be on top of them. "Come on, come on. . . . And. . . . Perfect!" He flicked a switch, and the claws closed around his friends. He punched the air in excitement. "Yes! Now, reverse! And gently deposit cargo on the deck!" He shouted commands at Festus and pulled levers like a madman. By the time he was done, Percy and Annabeth were lying on the deck, his other friends were climbing the rope ladder to get to them, and Leo had secretly made a few adjustments to the steering mechanisms.

"Annabeth! Percy! Are you guys okay? Oh my gods, what happened to you?" Piper was babbling as she ran to them and took in their injuries. "I'll get you some nectar right away. Ambrosia too. Just a second. . . ."

"Already done, Pipes," Jason interrupted, handing her a canteen.

"And here's water," Hazel added breathlessly, coming up from belowdecks. "I'm sure you guys need it. Food can come later, once you're stronger."

The others fussed over the pair, but Leo stood back nervously, eyeing the Doors of Death. They weren't closing. In fact, they seemed to be widening.

Nico was noticing the change too. He spoke up. "Guys, we have a problem." He nodded towards the Doors. Percy's hurricane had completely dissipated, and monsters were streaming through.

"I'm on it," Leo said quickly. "Festus, breathe fire." The dragon obeyed, shooting a stream of flames so hot that the monsters instinctively retreated, even those immune to fire. As soon as Leo was sure that they were safe for the moment, he ran to Percy and Annabeth. But not to comfort them. The others would have plenty of time for that later.

"Percy," he said. "Can monsters die in Tartarus?"

"Leo!" Piper said. "Why are you interrogating them? They're barely conscious!"

"I have to know," Leo said shortly. He turned back to Percy. "Well?"

"No," the son of Poseidon croaked. "They . . . get transported . . . to other parts . . . sometimes. . . . But never die."

"Okay. Can demigods?"

Percy coughed out a weak imitation of laughter. "I . . . don't know . . . Leo. . . . I've . . . never really _tried_ . . . to find out."

"Fair enough," Leo said. "Now what do I need to close the Doors?"

Slowly, the others seemed to realize what Leo was planning. "Leo . . ." Hazel whispered, "why do you have a sword? You never use a sword."

Leo kept his eyes on Percy. "What do I need to close the Doors?"

The older demigod looked at him, and his eyes focused. "No, man. . . ." he croaked. "You can't. . . ."

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do!" Leo shouted. His hair was starting to smoke, and he didn't bother putting it out. "Just tell me how to close the Doors!"

Percy hesitated. "You. . . . It's not fair. . . ."

"Life isn't fair, Percy," Leo said. He couldn't believe he was being so cross with such a legendary camper, but he really didn't have any time to waste. For one thing, he wasn't sure how long he could hold his resolve. For another, it was only a matter of time before the monsters came through again.

Percy shook his head and closed his eyes. "Fine. . . ." he said. "You can . . . use fire. . . ."

"Good. That's all I needed to know." Leo looked at Nico. "You'll close them topside?"

Nico's eyes were unreadable, but his voice wavered when he spoke. "Leo . . . you don't understand what it's _like_ in there. . . ."

"I do," Leo said. "It's horrible, and I might not make it out alive. In fact, I probably won't. I get it. Now, will you close the Doors topside or what?"

Nico sighed, an overwhelming look of pain and sadness and guilt all whirled together onto his expression. "Of course I will."

Leo looked at Frank. "You guys will be happy together," he said simply. It was the only way Leo could think to apologize for screwing with their relationship by looking like Sammy.

Hazel's eyes watered. "Leo. . . ." she whispered. "You don't have to. . . ."

"But I do," he told her. He looked at the others. "Be safe. I'll meet up with you guys in time for the final battle . . . hopefully. If I don't. . . . Well, kick Gaea's butt for me."

Piper ran to him and threw her arms around him. "Leo. . . ." She looked even more upset than when Percy and Annabeth fell. "I can't . . . we're _letting _this happen. . . . It's not right."

"But it _has_ to happen, Pipes," he answered. "I _have_ to do this." Before she could protest any more, he shrugged off her arms and stepped back. He had to avoid eye contact, so the broken light in her kaleidoscope eyes wouldn't convince him to give up. "I'm going now," he said quietly. Then he looked up - he had to see his friends one last time, even if their shattered expressions were ripping his heart into five different pieces - and repeated himself. "I'm going now!" He wanted to make a speech. He wanted to tell them how great they all were. He wanted to tell them how much their friendship meant to him. But the words wouldn't come, so he just nodded at them.

Then he thought of one thing he could say, one thing that was important. The words wouldn't burn his throat and force tears out of his eyes because they were instructions. He turned to the son of Hades. "Nico, climb into the grabber arm."

He just looked at Leo in confusion.

"The pull of Tartarus is crazy-strong," he told him. "You can't resist it _and_ close the Doors at the same time. The grabber arm will keep you safe."

Nico hesitated. "But you . . ."

Leo shrugged. "The Doors can't close if there's a metal claw in the way. Stop arguing, Nico. Just get into it."

Finally, everyone seemed to accept that this was happening. They stared at him in shock as he ran to the helm and steered Nico in front of the Doors. Then he hurried to the rope ladder and took the rungs three at a time. The first monster had just breached the entrance.

"I'll see you later!" he shouted up at the crew, not sure if his words were lost in the general commotion. "It'll be fine!" He didn't believe that himself, but he wanted to give the others hope.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, the pull of Tartarus sucked him through the Doors.

"Leo!" Piper's piercing scream shot through all the other noise. The rest of the crew just stared, dumbfounded, as Leo struggled to his feet. He was almost exactly in the spot where Percy and Annabeth had been moments ago. He turned and sent an arc of flames towards the other monsters. It was shaped just like Percy's hurricane, and acted like the same temporary barrier. Leo wasn't sure if that was a good or bad sign.

"Are you ready?" he shouted to Nico. The son of Hades nodded. "Then let's do this!"

Leo put his hand on one of the Doors and felt the mechanism. Percy was right. It would take the incredible power of searing white fire to force this Door to meet its partner again, just like it had taken a different incredible power to open the Doors in the first place. Looking at the nature of the lock, Leo figured that Percy probably could have closed it if he had sent the power of a hurricane into its gears. But then Percy and Annabeth would be stuck in here, exhausted, injured, and without supplies. Leo would be stuck in here once he was done, but at least he would be full of energy, uninjured, and stocked with the things he'd stuck in his belt. Hopefully.

If Jason was down here instead of Leo, he probably could have summoned a storm and arced lightning into the lock to close it, but Leo wasn't about to yell _that_ up to the _Argo II_. The son of Jupiter might have felt guilty enough to try to be a hero and take Leo's place. And Leo couldn't allow that to happen – not after he'd seen how happy Piper had been for the last few months.

"All right, Nico!" Leo yelled. "I'm starting!" He touched his palm to the lock and thought _fire_. The mechanism just absorbed the flames. Leo knew then that closing the Doors would take all the juice he had. Now he was _really_ glad Percy wasn't the one doing this. The effort might have just killed the worn-out demigod.

_Fire_, he thought again. _Hotter_. White-hot flames burst out of his hand and filled the lock with heat. _More_, he thought. _Don't just fill the lock. Fill the Door_. With his other hand, he reached towards the other Door and shot fire that way. _Fill that Door too_.

Leo had never tried to keep a sustained inferno going before. Black spots danced in his eyes. His vision started tunneling. His head pounded. His legs felt weak. But the fire kept coming. By sheer force of will, he was pulling the Doors together.

Then something occurred to him – something he had forgotten to mention. With an insane amount of effort, Leo raised his head. He could just make out Nico, using the same kind of concentration to release wave after wave of black energy. He searched beyond the son of Hades and saw the outline of the _Argo II_. "Can you hear me?" he yelled.

"Leo! What is it? Do you need help?" Leo had no idea who the answering voice was. There was an answering voice, and that was all that mattered.

"No! I'm . . . fine!" Leo was good at multi-tasking – he'd had practice while building the warship. But talking and shooting flames at the same time was the most difficult thing he could remember attempting. "Just . . . forgot . . . to tell you guys . . . something! Pass on . . . message . . . ?"

"Whatever you need, Leo! What is it?"

"Annabeth . . . has to . . . pilot ship now!" He paused to gather a few last shreds of energy. "Tell her . . . I modified controls . . . simpler! Notes . . . written . . . in my cabin . . . she . . . has to . . . study them . . . use Archimedes sphere . . . smartest demigod . . . she can figure it out too! I . . . trust . . . her! And . . . I . . . trust . . . you . . . all! Remember . . . don't . . . touch . . . ground . . . until final . . . battle! Gaea . . . can't get . . . other half . . . sacrifice . . . if no girl . . . ! Stay . . . safe . . . and we'll . . . win . . . ! Stay safe . . . and you'll defeat . . . Gaea . . . even . . . if . . . without . . . me!"

"Leo, you'll be fine!" the voice yelled. "You'll make it out of there! You told us so yourself!"

Leo didn't bother answering. He knew as well as the voice did how likely _that_ was. Besides, he had to focus all of his energy on closing the Doors now.

Slowly, slowly, the Doors moved closer. The strain was literally killing Leo. He saw his life flash before his eyes. Sitting on his mom's knee, tapping out Morse code in the workshop. Kneeling in front of the ashes of that same workshop. Running away from his first foster home. Running away from the second. Running away from countless others. Modifying Coach Hedge's megaphone. Laughing with Jason and Piper. Finding Camp Half-Blood. Defeating Ma Gasket. Defeating Khione. Returning to camp. Finding a new family. Finding a new home. Building the _Argo II_. Finding the Romans. Standing on a rock with Hazel. Standing on a limestone beach with Echo. Reaching Rome. Losing Percy and Annabeth. Reconciling with Frank. Growing closer to his crew mates. Discovering that they were friends. Finding the House of Hades. Finding Percy and Annabeth. Saving his friends. Purposefully falling into Tartarus. Saving his friends. Protecting his friends.

Leo breathed in and out slowly, trying not to pass out. He _had_ to protect his friends. He _had_ to be able to close these stupid Doors.

With a jolt of surprise, Leo realized that the stupid Doors were only two feet apart now, instead of twenty. "You can do this, Leo Valdez," he muttered. "Don't back down now." And he sent one huge burst of flames out of his hands, his hair, his entire body. The heat soaked into the Doors of Death, destroying the final remnants of dark magic that was keeping them open. Leo fell to his knees, completely spent, and forced himself to shoot two last fires towards them. At the same time, Nico threw two massive balls of black energy. Those missiles collided, and their combined strength was just enough to finish the job. The Doors of Death slammed shut.

* * *

There was a globe perched on the top of the House of Hades. It represented that all people in the world would eventually find themselves in the god's domain. It had a sort of special power, a little like the Athena Parthenos. The globe hadn't even budged when Leo had forced the _Argo II_ through the too-small entrance and into the building, but the power involved in closing the Doors of Death was too much for the globe to handle. As soon as Leo had finished closing the Doors for good, it toppled off its pedestal.

The rest of the seven had been busy forcing fluids into Percy and Annabeth and trying not to think about Leo's sacrifice, but when the world hit the floor outside with a thud strong enough to start a minor earthquake, their eyes all widened.

"Oh my gods. . . ." Piper whispered. "_To storm or fire, the world must fall_. Leo used fire to close the Doors, and then that globe fell to the ground. . . . The prophecy is coming—"

"No!" Hazel shouted suddenly, her eyes filling with tears. The others turned to her in confusion. "It _can't_ be coming true!" she insisted. "It _can't_ be! Because the . . . the next line is . . ." She swallowed a sob. "_An oath to keep with a final breath. . . . _And . . . and Leo promised Nemesis that he would get revenge on Gaea. And he promised that he would rescue Percy and Annabeth from Tartarus. Oh, gods, you don't think. . . ." She buried her head in Frank's chest, sobbing. "Nico, Leo's not _dead_, is he?"

Silence was her only answer. "Nico . . . ?" The others looked around and saw him, flopped across the claw arm, pale and unconscious. Everyone wanted to help the son of Hades, but they still felt too shocked to move.

Eventually it fell to Jason. He went to the helm, half-dazed, and stared blankly at the controls. Naturally, none of them were labeled. He hesitated for a moment, and then just turned to Festus. "Look, buddy," he muttered, too softly for the others to hear, "I know I'm not Leo. None of us is Leo. We don't know this ship like he does. But he's . . . he's gone now. So just until Annabeth recovers and can help us figure you out. . . . Do you think you could cut us some slack?" Festus's teeth whirled. Jason decided to take that as a yes. "Great. Then could you bring Nico over here and put him on the deck?"

Obediently, the grabber arm started to move. It maneuvered over the son of Jupiter's head and deposited Nico on the floor. Immediately, Hazel ran to him and started forcing nectar into his mouth too. The others stayed crouched over Percy and Annabeth, willing at least one of them to wake up again. Jason hesitated for a split-second, and then thanked the bronze dragon figurehead before rushing over to the son of Hades.

"Closing the Doors of Death must have taken all of his strength," Hazel whispered, wiping away her tears. "He'll be fine, but he won't be waking up any time soon." Frank came over and wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned into him for comfort. Jason went to Piper and did the same. They ended up in a contorted circle made up of four points – Percy and Annabeth, Jason and Piper, Frank and Hazel, and Nico.

Neither couple said what was on their minds. With Nico unconscious, there was no way to know how Leo was doing. And . . . well, they were looking at the three people passed out at their feet. Percy and Annabeth were injured and exhausted from trekking through Tartarus and finding an exit. Nico was exhausted from closing the Doors topside. Both of those were terrible ordeals.

However, Leo had just spent at least as much energy to close the Doors from Tartarus. And, assuming that he was still conscious, it would take him at least a week – that was how long Percy and Annabeth had taken, working together – to find another exit (assuming that there _was_ another exit). Nico's fight had knocked him unconscious. Percy's and Annabeth's fights had knocked them unconscious. But Leo was facing _both_. That was an _insane_ amount of danger. With the odds stacked against him like that. . . . How could the son of Hephaestus _possibly_ survive?

* * *

**"BEEEEEP."**

**That was the tone. Now please leave your message. ;)**


	2. Part II

**Thank you for the many lovely reviews, guys! They were fantastic. :)**

**So I changed the summary for this story. I will probably change it again several times before I'm completely satisfied. This is the summary I _would_ write, if it weren't so _long_. :P **

**"'And by the gods, if Leo had to design a grabber arm long enough to snatch Percy and Annabeth out of Tartarus, then that's what he would do. Nemesis wanted him to wreak vengeance on Gaea? Leo would be happy to oblige. He was going to make Gaea sorry she had ever messed with Leo Valdez.' -pg. 574, MoA. The demigods have reached the House of Hades, but their problems have just begun. Annabeth and Percy must be rescued. The Doors of Death must be closed. The legion has to be stopped from destroying Camp Half-Blood and any chance of a future alliance, and the Great Prophecy must be fulfilled. And all of these responsibilities seem to be resting on one flaming repair boy's shoulders. **

**"The climax of this saga is approaching. Oaths will be kept, worlds will fall, and storm and fire will reach everyone and everything from Greece to Tartarus."**

**Like I said, long. I would post this in the first chapter, but we all know that had a long enough author's note already. :P**

**Ergh, now this one is long too. Gosh, I promise they won't be like this from here on out. Sorry!**

**Disclaimer: ****"Hello, dearest readers. I do not own PJO. I am not Rick Riordan. Not male. Don't have gray hair. Don't have a book published. I claim rights to nothing except the plot." *pause* "This message will be repeated for each chapter. Please leave a message after the tone."**

* * *

**Part II**

* * *

Percy woke up to sunlight streaming through the porthole in his cabin and someone knocking on his door. "Can I come in?" It sounded like Hazel.

He pushed himself onto his elbows, which turned out to be a bad idea. While in Tartarus, Percy had had more important things to worry about than injuries, but now that he was lying on clean sheets in a soft bed, he realized that his elbows were scraped raw. They were bandaged, but it still ached to put his entire weight on them. He yelped, collapsed, and banged his head on the headboard. Immediately, Hazel entered.

"Are you okay?"

Percy rubbed his head, feeling embarrassed. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just, uh, lost my balance for a second."

She looked at him worriedly. "You've been asleep for three days. We've given you water and nectar and stuff, but it was too hard to get you to eat food."

Hazel kept talking, but Percy zoned out as soon as she'd mentioned the word "food". He hadn't realized how hungry he'd been in Tartarus either. Being constantly attacked by monsters had kind of numbed pain receptors and basic needs like food, water, and sleep. Percy had only been focused on two things in Tartarus – keeping Annabeth safe and finding the Doors of Death. Now he was noticing less important details, like how sore he felt and how his growling stomach sent sharp pains through his body.

Before he accepted food, though, there was one thing he had to know. "Annabeth," he said. "How is she?"

Hazel smiled slightly. "She's woken up briefly a couple times, but she's resting right now. She'll be fine soon, though."

Percy nodded. "Good. Now, what were you saying about food?" As an answer, Hazel brought a breakfast out from behind her back.

He wanted to dig in and devour it all, but as it turned out, Percy only managed half a bagel and a bottle of water before he felt slightly queasy and had to lean back and close his eyes.

"Percy . . . " He cracked one eye open and looked at her. "Did you guys eat at _all_ in Tartarus?"

He had to think about it. "We found Annabeth's backpack," he said slowly, "and there was some food in that. A few supplies popped up every now and then. . . . Mostly I let Annabeth eat."

Hazel couldn't hide a grin. "Of course you did."

"She forced me to take some of the food, though," he added thoughtfully. "That was probably smart of her."

When Hazel didn't answer immediately, Percy peered at her. "You don't look so good," he said. "What's bothering you?"

She stared at the floor, and slowly, Percy realized that she was crying. Now he was starting to get worried. "Hazel, what is it?" She just shook her head. Without thinking about it, Percy pulled her into a hug. Hazel was almost like a little sister to him – a mature little sister who took care of the rest of her family. Seeing her crying was like getting stabbed through the side, and Percy knew what he was talking about when it came to that. "What aren't you telling me?"

Finally, she looked up at him, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "Don't you remember?" she whispered. "After Leo pulled you guys out of Tartarus, he went in there himself to close the Doors of Death." All the air went out of Percy. Getting rescued from that pit of death was a blurry mess of sensations and emotions rather than images, but even so, he should've remembered that. He should have remembered that Leo Valdez had sacrificed himself to keep Percy and Annabeth safe.

He clenched his eyes shut like that would make the words disappear. "Oh, gods. . . . And he didn't get back out before they closed?"

Hazel shook her head again. "Leo had to shoot fire for at least ten full minutes before the Doors closed. By the time they did . . . He looked too exhausted to move, let alone sprint against the pull of Tartarus and get out of there."

"What about Nico?" Percy asked anxiously. "Did he . . . ?"

"Leo made him get into the grabber arm," Hazel said. "Thank the gods for that. Nico is alive and safe, but still unconscious. So there's no way to know . . ." She didn't finish the sentence, but Percy knew what she meant. _There's no way to know if Leo is alive or not_. The bagel sat like a ball of guilt at the bottom of his stomach.

In a fit of frustration, he grabbed his empty water bottle and threw it across the room. "Percy!" Hazel said in shock.

"It's my fault," Percy muttered. "I should be the one in there, not him."

"No, Percy, don't say that!" Hazel said shrilly. Percy looked at her in surprise, and then worry. She looked close to falling apart. Hazel _never_ looked like that. She always held herself together for everyone else. For her to be _this_ upset . . . Percy didn't want to think about that. He just hugged her tighter and listened.

"We _have_ to stop blaming ourselves! We have to! Leo blamed himself for you guys landing in Tartarus in the first place – just because he cracked open that _stupid_ fortune cookie to save my life and Frank's and Nemesis had said there would be a price to pay. He was convinced that you and Annabeth were the price. _That's_ why he went into Tartarus to close the Doors of Death instead. But I think he was the_ real _price Nemesis wanted, not you guys." Her voice cracked on an empty sob, but she kept going. "Blaming ourselves doesn't accomplish anything. It only leads to pain and unnecessary guilt. I can't . . . First Sammy, then Leo . . . You can't blame yourself too. I won't let you."

Percy wasn't quite sure what she meant about Sammy, but he didn't pry. He just nodded. "All right, Hazel. I promise."

"Good," she said, exhaling. "Thank you." She hesitated and looked at him. "Percy, you look pale again. Are you feeling all right?"

Percy didn't want to admit it, but he _did_ feel light-headed. "Well . . ."

That one word was all Hazel needed to hear. "You didn't get _one_ proper night's sleep in Tartarus, did you?" she scolded, reverting to mother-hen mode. "I'll bet Annabeth didn't either. It's no wonder you two are so tired. Back to bed, Percy. Sleep. Recover. Now."

Percy didn't bother arguing. He just climbed dutifully into his bunk and closed his eyes.

* * *

He woke up exactly an hour later. It was like his body had programmed itself to become conscious just before the dreams could start. Percy thanked the gods for that. The last things he needed were dreams right now.

He pulled himself out of bed and stretched his shoulders, which felt tight and uncomfortable. He figured that he hadn't moved properly for three days, and there was only one way to stretch out his tense muscles. He checked his back pocket and found his ballpoint pen, still reassuringly reliable when the rest of his life had turned upside down. It was time to see if Leo had packed any of Camp's straw dummies into the _Argo II_.

As it turned out, Percy had to wander aimlessly for about twenty minutes before he found Jason, who told him where the dummies were and helped him set them up in a circle on deck. "Are you sure you're good to swordfight?" the son of Jupiter frowned.

"I'm fine," Percy insisted.

And for the first few minutes, he _was_ fine. It was oddly relaxing to get into the rhythm of _slash, jab, slice, _and_ dodge_, even if he was only dodging loose straw. Then something odd started happening. As Percy watched in horror, the dummies started to morph into monsters. He attacked them with a new ferocity, hoping to keep them from changing completely. But it was too late. He had let the creatures surround him, right there in broad daylight. But no . . . It _wasn't_ broad daylight. He wasn't outside – he was underground, in a barren imitation of a meadow. The monsters made up Gaea's army, and Annabeth was lying injured at his feet. He was back in Tartarus. Percy wasn't sure how Gaea had managed it, but it didn't surprise him. She was getting more powerful every day.

_Percy Jackson_. Her voice echoed across the meadow. _You are foolish to think that you can withstand me. I will capture you and Annabeth Chase, and your blood will be spilled on the ancient stones in Greece. You said you wanted to be together, did you not? _The earth goddess laughed. _I will grant you your wish._

"You . . . can't . . . have . . . us . . ." Percy muttered. He slashed through the monsters, but they wouldn't die. Of course they wouldn't. This was _Tartarus_. They just stood there, mocking him. Percy felt his breath coming harder, but he refused to let up. If he stopped, they would capture him and Annabeth. They would hurt Annabeth, and he could _not_ let that happen. Sweat dripped off Percy's hair. Water started to gather around him as Percy pulled moisture from the air as he fought, just in case he needed to make another hurricane. He didn't stop. The air grew muggier. His muscles burned. He didn't stop. He _couldn't_ stop.

"Percy!" He whirled around and saw another monster running towards him. "Percy, slow down! You're going to hurt yourself—"

Percy didn't stop to think. Instead, he raised his sword and brought it down on the monster's head. After all, it was just another one of Gaea's minions.

Jason raised his sword just in time. If Percy had had another split second, he would have chopped the son of Jupiter in half. "What in _Hades_ were you thinking?" Jason yelled. "You could have killed me!"

Why was it talking to him? And why did it sound like one of his friends?

Percy blinked, and the monster was Jason. He turned in shock. The other creatures were just straw dummies. Annabeth was sleeping belowdecks. Percy started shaking. He wasn't in Tartarus. He had hallucinated. He had almost killed his friend. Gods of Olympus . . .

Percy shook harder. The blood drained from his face. "Oh my gods, Jason," he muttered. "I'm sorry. I thought . . ."

Jason stopped glaring at the son of Poseidon and peered at him closely. "What do you mean?"

Percy felt like he was going to pass out, and maybe he was. He didn't feel well. He had just fought for half an hour on the energy granted by half a bagel. Besides that, he had almost killed his friend. But . . . It had felt so _real. . . ._

The son of Poseidon dropped to the ground. Jason knelt down next to him, frowning. Percy's eyes were blank and half-closed. "Percy, you look awful," Jason said. "You should go back to your cabin—"

"I almost killed you," Percy muttered. "But I was so sure . . . Annabeth had just gotten stabbed in the shoulder, and the monsters had surrounded me all over again, and all the grass was dead, and they wouldn't die, and I couldn't stop to help Annabeth, and all the grass was dead, and Gaea was taunting me. . . ."

It was the first time Jason had heard any detail about Tartarus, other than that it was dark and awful. Jason had faced terrible enemies of all shapes and sizes, but the haunted look in his friend's eyes scared him the most. He placed a hand on Percy's shoulder hesitantly, but the son of Poseidon shook it off. "Stop!" he half-shouted, getting to his feet and almost backing into a dummy. He held his sword in front of him, and his eyes were slits. "The grass is _dead_. It's dead. So why is it growing, and crawling over my feet, and covering Annabeth, and _oh my gods it's suffocating her_!" While Jason watched in horror, Percy dropped his sword and yanked his feet into the air for no apparent reason. Then he ran to the center of the circle, fell to his knees, and started pulling at nothing. "You will _not_ take her!" he cried hoarsely. "I will _not_ let you take Annabeth back to Gaea. . . ."

Jason ran to his friend. "Percy!" he shouted. "_You are not in Tartarus_!" The older demigod looked up at him, but his eyes went straight through Jason. Jason had to stop Percy from hallucinating, but he wasn't sure how. So he did the only thing he could think of. He punched Percy across the jaw.

The commotion brought the other demigods on deck. They found Percy sprawled across the floor, rubbing his face, and Jason standing above him. "You wouldn't listen to me," he told Percy apologetically. "I couldn't think of anything else to do."

Percy shook his head and stumbled to his feet. "It's . . . cool . . ." he said unsteadily.

"What happened?" Piper asked. Jason gave her a look. _Later_, he mouthed. Luckily, she seemed to understand.

"Percy, you should go back to your cabin," Piper told him. "Do you want—?"

"I want to see Annabeth," he said.

She hesitated. "She's resting," Piper said. "Do you really think it's a good idea to bother her . . . ?"

"No, you don't understand," Percy said brusquely. "I _need_ to see her." He pushed past the others and hurried down the stairs. "She doesn't need rest!" he yelled over his shoulder. "She needs sunlight!"

Piper started to go after him, but Jason caught her by the shoulder. "I think he _does_ need to see her," he muttered. "Just now, he started acting like he was back in Tartarus. I think he was reliving something that happened to them. And . . . He thought it was real. He even saw me and, like, looked right through me and thought I was a monster. Maybe . . . well, if he sees Annabeth, it might convince him that he really made it out of there."

Piper shrugged off his hand. "I'm sure that he needs to see her," she told him softly. "I just think one of us should be there when he gets to her cabin . . . to help with the shock."

Jason hesitated, and then nodded. "Maybe all of us should."

* * *

Her fingers were so numb that Annabeth had no idea if she was still clutching Percy's hand. The black air rushed past her face, taunting her. _I go to Tartarus, and you will go too_, it seemed to whisper over and over again. Well, Annabeth was certainly on her way.

She tried to yell for Percy, just to make sure they were still together, but the air choked her, forcing her words back down her throat. But she didn't let that stop her. Annabeth twisted around in mid-air – which was a lot harder than she had expected – and grasped wildly for Percy with her free hand. Finally, her fingers brushed something softer than the biting wind, kinder than the mocking darkness. She grabbed Percy's shirt and pulled herself closer to him. She couldn't see anything, but she could feel his warm breath, a thousand times warmer than the air around her. "Percy . . ." she whispered. Then she felt an arm wrap around her, keeping her against him.

"I hear you, Annabeth." His voice echoed next to her. It was eerie, feeling and hearing Percy without seeing him, but Annabeth didn't care. At least he was there. "We're together. I never let go of you."

The darkness hid his face, but Annabeth thought of his sea green eyes and smiled. Gaea would never take her Seaweed Brain away from her.

_That's where you are mistaken, daughter of Athena_. Annabeth froze in shock. What was . . . ? _Percy Jackson did not follow you into Tartarus. You are imagining him. You are falling alone._

Annabeth wanted to protest, but the wind laughed at her screams and smothered them. "Percy!" She could feel his arm, but she wanted to be sure. "Percy, you're here, aren't you?"

_I was never here._ Percy was talking to her, but it wasn't Percy. This voice was colder, more distant. _I let you search for the Athena Parthenos alone, didn't I? What makes you think that this time is any different? No one is falling with you, Annabeth. Better to surrender to Gaea now._

"No!" Annabeth's shouts were strangled. "Percy, you promised! Where are you? You're here, aren't you?" As she asked, she felt the arm around her waist vanish. Her fingers gained feeling again, just in time for her to realize that she was clutching empty air. Even the image of his eyes was gone. "Where . . . Percy, where are you? _Where are you_?"

"I'm here, Annabeth." She whirled through the air in confusion, knocking against a rock face as she struggled to get her bearings. That was Percy. There was no doubt about it. But it _couldn't_ be – because she couldn't feel him. She couldn't see him. Percy was lying to her.

"You're not!" she wailed. "You're not here. . . . You left me. . . ."

"Never." Percy's voice cracked, but Annabeth felt that somehow, it was even stronger than Gaea's. "I would never leave you, Annabeth. I'm here. We're _together_." She felt his hand again, and she knew that _that_ was real. Even the laughing wind was fake, as long as Percy was real. Nothing bad could touch her. "Wake up, Annabeth. I'm here."

She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she wasn't just imagining Percy's eyes. They were right there, looking down at her in concern. Before she registered anything else – there was natural light brighter than Riptide around her, she was on a bed, her shoulder was sore, her entire torso ached – she threw her arms around her Seaweed Brain and buried her face in his neck. He held her just as tightly. "I . . ." she sobbed. "I was falling again. . . . And you weren't there. . . ."

"That didn't happen," he promised. "I was there. I'm here now. We're safe, Annabeth. We're on the _Argo II_ again. We're in your cabin."

Gradually, Annabeth felt calm enough to look around. The first thing she saw was her porthole window. "There's _sunlight._ . . ." she breathed. She laughed into Percy's shirt and pushed herself out of bed. "There's sunlight!" She ran to the window and peered out of it. The light was blinding, but that was just how Annabeth wanted it. It was far better to be blind in light than blind in darkness.

Percy stood at her shoulder. She turned to him, and once her eyesight adjusted, she saw that he looked gaunt, exhausted, and slightly pained. But he was still smiling softly. "We did it," he told her. "We survived."

Only then, once she was sure that he was all right, that she was all right, and that they were in the mortal world, did she turn around. Piper, Jason, Frank, and Hazel were all standing in the doorway, looking at them. A mixture of worry and relief was etched onto their faces. "We really are back," she whispered in amazement. "You're all here." Then she hesitated. "Wait. No, you aren't. Where's Coach Hedge? And Leo?" She grinned. "Let me guess. Coach Hedge is watching kung-fu movies in his cabin, and Leo is goofing off with the Archimedes sphere."

No one laughed. In fact, the mood in the room chilled. Annabeth frowned and looked at Percy. "What's going on?"

But Percy wasn't the one who answered. Piper did. "When we went into the House of Hades to rescue you guys, Coach Hedge was in charge of defending our getaway car – or warship, I guess. He had to get off to get rid of some monsters, which is why he wasn't there when Leo . . ." She paused and looked away. "Anyway, when we came back out and found him, he had won, but he'd also injured his leg. Stairs aren't really working out for him at the moment. He's steering on deck."

"Okay," Annabeth said slowly. "But earlier, you mentioned Leo and stopped. What . . ." She trailed off. After injuring her shoulder, everything had been a blur of pain and worry until she blacked out at Percy's feet, but she remembered that the Doors had to be closed from within as well as without – using either storm or fire. If Percy and her had both escaped from Tartarus, then who had stayed inside to close the Doors . . . ? _Fire_. Her eyes widened in fear. "Oh, gods. Don't tell me he . . ."

Silence met Annabeth's words. Hazel's eyes filled with sadness, but not with tears. She grabbed Frank's shoulder, and he wrapped a hesitant arm around her. "He did," she whispered.

Suddenly, the injuries that Annabeth had carried from Tartarus started to weigh on her, adding to the tons that had settled on her when she realized what had happened to Leo. She sat down hard in her desk chair before she could sink onto the floor. "Why did he give himself up for us?" she wondered. "He didn't owe us anything."

Hazel shook her head. "He thought he did. He'd also promised to get both of you out safely. It was . . ." She choked on a dry sob. "An oath he kept."

Annabeth felt like passing out again, but she didn't want the dreams to return. Instead, she gripped Percy's hand tighter. "No," she murmured. Then she repeated it, stronger. "_No_. I don't believe. . . . He can't be gone. I'm sure he's fine. Can't Nico tell . . . ?" A couple more cement blocks dropped onto her shoulders. "Oh, gods, Nico isn't here either. He . . . didn't end up in Tartarus _too_, did he?"

The others rushed to reassure her. "Nico's all right," Piper promised. "Just exhausted from closing the Doors on this side. He hasn't woken up yet."

Somehow, that didn't make her feel much better. After all, Leo was still stuck in the hellhole that Percy and her had narrowly escaped. She shook her head numbly. "I just can't believe that Leo's . . . He never takes anything seriously. He's always joking about being invincible. He must not have had any _idea_ what he was getting into."

"I think he did," Piper said. "I've been in his room since we left the House of Hades behind, and I think he was _preparing_ for it. Already, he was getting less sleep than the rest of us. He worked _all_ the time, either piloting us through hordes of monsters or updating our weapons systems. I always assumed that when we forced him to rest, he crashed immediately, but now I'm not so sure. I mean . . . He told us that he wanted you to read his notes and learn about the Archimedes sphere and piloting the ship and stuff. I just assumed that he had written a couple lines on a sheet of paper, but . . . Well, you should come take a look in his cabin once you start feeling better."

Annabeth pulled herself out of her chair, using Percy to steady herself. "I'm fine," she said. After Leo had saved both of their lives, Annabeth figured that the least she could do was fulfill his request. "Let's go."

She weaved through her friends, stopping them when they tried to protest, and made her way down the hall. Piper and Percy followed uncertainly. Soon enough, she found Leo's room, walked through his open door – and stared. She felt Percy next to her, gaping with open astonishment. "Oh," Annabeth said in a small voice.

"'Oh' is right," Piper said with a sigh. "Leo must have lived on pure caffeine and adrenaline for the last week. It's the only way he would have had enough time to get all this down."

Annabeth couldn't help but agree. Every last square inch of Leo's walls (and half of the ceiling) was covered with writing and accompanying diagrams. Some of it was wide and slanted, most of it was compact chicken scratch, and all of it was scrawled out with a black Sharpie that he must have pulled out of his tool belt. The "notes" looked like the ramblings of a madman. Annabeth was half-afraid that they were. "What was he _thinking_?" she muttered. "He could have just borrowed paper from my room."

"Um . . . He did." Piper pointed at the desk in the corner of the room. Annabeth hadn't even noticed it while she was absorbing the chaos of the walls, but now she saw the sheets of notebook paper lying in a crumpled heap on the surface. The first sheet had the words "Start Here" scratched across the top margin.

"How could Leo have _that much_ to say about a sphere and an old scroll?" Percy muttered.

Annabeth ignored him and walked to the pile of notes, worried that she wouldn't be able to read a word. Luckily, he had at least started out with (relatively) legible guy-writing before deteriorating into the scribbles on the wall. Silently, she sat down, picked up the first page, and started skimming. Her eyes widened about halfway down, and she looked up at her friends. "This is genius," she told them. "He's translated some of Archimedes's ideas and made a few modifications, and . . . they're genius." It was the only descriptor that seemed powerful enough to describe it. She kept reading, flipped over the paper, and laughed shortly. "They're genius . . . Except that he accidentally switched to Spanish on the back."

She shuffled through the papers until he returned to English. Phrases popped out at her. _Modified spheres - maybe strong enough for giants _was written next to a cross-section of something that looked disturbingly like a bazooka. Annabeth looked at another section. _Mirrored death ray = great trap for Porphryion_. There was a long formula beside that one. Annabeth knew she would have to study it carefully to be sure, but the construction looked feasible, if difficult. She flipped the paper over to see if there were more numbers on the back. There were, but Annabeth hardly noticed. Her eyes had immediately gone to the bottom half of the paper, which was circled over and over again. Most of the writing was miniscule with all the letters smashed together, but one part near the top was written excitedly and in all capitals. _GRABBER ARM WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO PICK UP SHIPS. IF STRENGTH MOVED TO ARM NOT CLAW AND MEASUREMENTS MODIFIED, COULD MAYBE WITHSTAND PULL OF TARTARUS. COULD RESCUE P+A?! FIRST PRIORITY._ The next sentence said _(epic mirrored death ray second)_, but Annabeth didn't notice that. She looked for another paper and realized that there wasn't one. Then she lifted her head and saw that the entire wall in front of her was filled with calculations concerning the device that had saved her and Percy's lives. Leo must have been too excited to run off and waste precious seconds searching for paper.

"This was for us," Annabeth said, turning to look at Percy and gesturing behind her. "He considered seven different rescue plans, chose the grabber arm, and used up the entire wall figuring out the details." She squinted at the rest. "Two of these walls are about Archimedes and his inventions. . . . But that wall describes how the engine works, how to understand Festus's whirring noises, how to use the weapons he made. . . . This bit is a diagram of the helm. He finally wrote down what all the levers, buttons, switches, and knobs do." Annabeth shook her head sadly. "At the beginning the words flow like calculations and notes he's written out for himself, but by the end, they're more like . . . _directions_. I think you were right, Piper. He _was_ preparing for it. He _knew_ what he was going to do in the House of Hades. . . ."

"And he decided not to mention any of it to us," Piper added softly. "He knew we would try to talk him out of it and find another way."

"What's so wrong with that?" Percy muttered. Annabeth was just starting to notice how strange Percy looked. It wasn't just that Tartarus had left physical scars and side effects on her boyfriend, like his bandaged side and shrunken stomach. His eyes were different. It was as if the light in them had . . . _cracked_. Annabeth resolved to have a long talk with her Seaweed Brain later, after Piper left, to mend the cracks. Because if his eyes changed from _cracked_ to _shattered . . . _Annabeth thought she might just shatter too.

"What's wrong with that?" Piper repeated. "I don't think anything is. But Leo did. I guess . . . I guess he figured that there _wasn't_ another way, and he didn't want anyone to talk him out of doing the only way that he _did_ see."

At those words, they fell silent. Eventually, Annabeth sighed. "I think I'll stay here for a while," she said. "I want to be able to understand the weapons Leo built by the time we have to use them."

"All right," Percy said. "But I'm going to bring you food before you get started, or you'll forget to eat." He said it matter-of-factly, and Annabeth knew it was true.

"Okay, Percy," she said. "When you do . . . You should stay for a while. I want to talk to you."

He nodded, and she could already see his eyes mending. "Good idea. I want to talk to you too."

Piper looked between them, hesitated, and then backed out of Leo's room. "On second thought, how about _I_ get food for _both_ of you?" she asked. "You can get settled now."

"Sure," Percy said, shrugging. He sat down on the bed and Piper left. Immediately, Annabeth's heart started pounding. She hadn't been alone with Percy since being pulled out of Tartarus. It was nice in a way, but it also reminded her painfully of the experiences they had shared in the realm deeper than the Underworld.

"What did you want to talk about?" he muttered.

"_You_, Percy," she told him, sitting next to him and taking his hand. "You look . . . different. Is something wrong?"

"Besides the fact that Leo is stuck in Tartarus, the gods still won't help us, the Romans are still planning on marching on Camp Half-Blood, and Gaea is supposed to rise in two weeks?" Percy asked sarcastically. Then he sighed. "Yeah. Something is. Earlier, I was sword fighting on deck with some straw dummies, and . . . well . . . It was like I was back in Tartarus all over again, fighting for my life. And Gaea was taunting me, and you were hurt, and the monsters wouldn't die . . . And I tried to slice one monster in two, and then it talked and I realized . . . The monster was Jason. I had hallucinated the whole thing. And I had almost killed my friend." As Percy spoke, he started scowling. By the time he was done, there was a thick crease between his eyebrows, he was looking down, and the mouth that Annabeth was used to seeing turned up in a signature Seaweed Brain smile was frowning deeply.

Annabeth squeezed his hand and tried not to look too alarmed by his story. "It's all right, Percy. We went through Hades – _worse_ than Hades – while we were in Tartarus. We can't expect to just be fine again. Just . . . don't practice sword fighting for a while. Then when you go back to those straw dummies, it won't bother you anymore."

Percy hesitated. "But what about you, Annabeth?" The sudden change of subject took her by surprise.

"What do you mean?" she said carefully.

He frowned again. "You know what I mean. You _have_ to sleep. What about your _dreams_?" Now it was his turn to look concerned. "When I came in your cabin, you were tossing and turning and banging against the wall and shouting. Then when you had just woken up, you weren't making much sense, and I didn't want to pry. . . . What were you dreaming about?"

Annabeth sighed and told him about her dream. Reliving the false memory was painful, but also relieving. When she finished, Percy didn't try to make her feel better with empty words. He just pulled her into a hug and leaned his head on top of hers. It was then, leaning into Percy's arms, that Annabeth finally felt herself relax. Only then did she believe that they would be okay. They would recover from Tartarus, and they would destroy Gaea and all her minion giants. They would even figure out a way to get Leo back. After all, they had fallen into hell and survived to return together. Anything after that was easy in comparison.

* * *

Leo was surprised to wake up. If he was being honest, he had expected that closing the Doors of Death would do him in. So when he found that he was awake and not dead, the first thing he felt was profound relief and a sudden urge to kiss the ground and thank the gods. Then he realized that he was chained too tightly to move, and his head hurt like Styx. That could only mean one thing. Suddenly, Leo didn't feel like thanking anybody.

_Hello, Leo Valdez_. Gaea's voice seemed to fill the room – or cavern, or field, or wherever they were. _I'm so glad you're here._

* * *

**BEEEEP. **

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	3. Part III

**Wow, we're at 31 reviews already?! Oh my gosh! That's amazing! You guys rock! :D ****Thank you for all the support!**

**Hopefully I'll keep updating every week, or maybe *fingers crossed* more than once a week? But I'm almost to the end of my pre-written chapters, so I don't know . . . **

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**Disclaimer: I'm really liking this voicemail-disclaimer thing. It tells you I'm not RR, I don't have to think of a new clever disclaimer every time, and it even subtly asks for reviews! It does it all! :P Anyway . . . ********"Hello, dearest readers. I do not own PJO. I am not Rick Riordan. Not male. Don't have gray hair. Don't have a book published. I claim rights to nothing except the plot." *pause* "This message will be repeated for each chapter. Please leave a message after the tone."**

* * *

**Part III**

* * *

"Glad?" Leo said out loud. "I didn't think you were capable of feeling that emotion."

_I am very glad, Leo Valdez_, Gaea said, not fazed a bit. _I am glad that I have one half of the sacrifice I need, and I am glad that you will not be on the_ Argo II _to try and stop me from awakening. Without your knowledge of that ship, your friends will not be able to use all of the . . . _modifications_ you made. Your hard work will go to waste, and I will rise. That makes me very happy._

"Annabeth is there," Leo said confidently. "She's a genius. She'll figure the weapons out."

_I doubt that_, Gaea chuckled_. Your friends Percy and Annabeth have come back from Tartarus . . ._ changed. _They are hardly suitable for fighting, or figuring out much of anything. As for Nico di Angelo, I am afraid that he is also . . . out of commission._

"I don't believe you," Leo claimed, trying not to let his voice waver with panic. "You're lying. Nico is alive."

_Oh, he's alive_, Gaea said dismissively. _But there are other ways to disable a demigod._

"What did you do to him?" Leo yelled.

_Nothing_. She sounded amused, but it was a dangerous, chilling kind of amusement. _He did it to himself. It takes much effort to counteract the forces of the earth. After the strain _you_ put yourself under, you should know that._

"You mean . . . " Leo grinned triumphantly. "We _did_ close the Doors!"

_Perhaps. But it does not matter in the end. I have already sent my armies into the mortal world. They will overcome your friends quickly. And I have no need to send more forces to your reinforcements at Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter_. Gaea laughed, and it was like an earthquake had shaken all of Tartarus. _They will destroy each other soon enough._

Leo felt guilt settle deep in his stomach. She was saying that just to get to him. She knew the civil war was his fault. _No, it's not_, he reminded himself quickly. _You didn't fire on New Rome – one of those stupid eidolons did, working on Gaea's orders. It's _her _fault – not yours_. Gaea's laughter continued to rocket around, and suddenly, Leo was _done_ with her jibes and insults. He frowned. "I don't see how this is funny. At all. And I'm the king of funny, milady Dirt Face." He looked at the ground, imagined that her ugly sleeping face was sticking out of it, and ground his heel into the spot where her nose would be.

Almost instantly, he felt a clod of dirt slam into the side of his head. He staggered, but the chains holding him to a pole kept him from falling over. When his vision eventually cleared and his ears stopped ringing, Gaea was still talking to him. _You will not speak to me in that way, Leo Valdez_, she admonished, as if she was scolding a kindergartner. _You will stay relatively cordial. Otherwise, I may decide to just kill you now. And that would mean making _two _of your friends my sacrifices, instead of one. Who should I choose? Your siblings, Nyssa Steel and Jake Mason? Or . . . No, I have a better idea. Nyssa Steel and Harley Robertson. _

Leo's stomach twisted in on itself. She would stoop _that_ low? She would kill a kid that hadn't even reached _middle_ school yet? He wanted to smash her imaginary nose in again, but he forced himself to refrain. He knew that Gaea didn't make threats lightly. If she promised to do something, it would happen.

_You know, Leo Valdez, I think that I will make use of you while you are here_, Gaea told him mockingly. _In a day or two, I will have you Iris-message your foolish friends and give them false hope and misleading directions. It will be entertaining to watch them flounder and misuse your weapons during the next attack I send to them. _

"You can't make me do that," Leo said, grinding his teeth together. "What can you threaten me with? Death? You're planning on killing me anyway."

Gaea laughed again. Leo looked up nervously, afraid that a stalactite was going to break off from the ceiling and come crashing down on his head. _Maybe. But there are other ways to convince you. Torture is a reasonably reliable method._

Leo gulped, but stared down the darkness bravely. "Torture, huh? Bring it on, Mother Nature."

For a moment, nothing happened. Then something came walking out of the gloom. It was at least seven feet tall, humanoid, and wearing a tailored suit. The man (monster?) smiled at Leo, stretching the wrinkles that crossed his face in hideous ways. "Hello, godspawn," he said. "Would you like to sample one of my very comfortable water beds?"

Leo looked at the ground incredulously. "How is a nice bed torture?"

"Oh, it's not," the man assured him. "It's very comfortable . . . as long as you fit, of course. If you're not six feet tall exactly, I'm afraid I'm going to have to, uh, _stretch_ you a little."

"_Stretch me?_"

"Just until you're six feet tall," the man said in what was supposed to be a comforting voice. "You have to fit, you see. _Anyone_ who lays in one of my beds has to fit."

Leo's mouth went dry. Not for the first time, he cursed the gods for making him so short.

The man pulled Leo's chains away from the tree and dragged him across the dead grass. His head knocked against a couple of rocks and dirt clumps, but right now, those were the least of Leo's problems. "So – ow – what is your – ow – name?"

The man's chapped lips stretched into a smile that revealed disgusting yellow teeth. "My name is Procrustes," he said. "Your friend Percy Jackson knows me well. He was the one who sent me down here almost five years ago. I was hoping that I would be able to meet _him_ today, but you are the next best thing, I suppose. After all, you are still a customer, and I love _all_ my customers."

Before Leo could come up with a plan, Procrustes stopped. He pulled Leo to his feet and pushed him into a bed with hot pink sheets and a red heart headboard. The bed clashed hideously with the darkness of Tartarus. _Gods of Olympus, please don't let me die in something so ugly_, Leo prayed. "Don't you have any other models?" he asked, trying not to sound desperate.

Procrustes looked angry. "Other _models_? I _used_ to have other models! I had an entire _store_! Crusty's Water Bed Palace, I called it! But that Jackson demigod tricked me into being tied to my own merchandise, and then _killed_ me! The gods only know what happened to my wares. This is the only bed that fell into Tartarus with me." Then he got control of himself, and his face smoothed out. "But it is a _wonderful_ water bed, godspawn. It has countless special features. Once I make you the correct size, we can talk about its amazing specs."

"Amazing specs?" Leo asked, stalling for time. "What amazing specs? Why can't we talk about those _now_?"

Procrustes laughed. "I'm sorry, Leo Valdez. I have special orders from Gaea to start the procedure as soon as possible. But do not worry. You won't die down here – I think. Monsters can't, but then again, you're no monster, boy. Unfortunately for you."

Leo gulped. _That_ was encouraging.

"_Ergo_!" Ropes lashed to Leo and pulled him tight. Leo gasped in pain as they stretched cramped muscles that Leo hadn't been able to use for days.

Procrustes tutted. "You are _several_ inches too short, Leo Valdez! How inconsiderate! Well, we'll soon fix that. Usually I start the stretching on a low setting, but again, Gaea has special orders for you. Be happy, godspawn. Haven't you always wanted to be taller?" He smiled again, making Leo shiver.

Then the ropes _really_ started tugging at his spine. Leo had never been burned by fire, but if he had, he imagined it would hurt just a little less than this. Leo felt like his vertebrae were tearing apart. He screamed.

* * *

Nico jerked upright, eyes wide. Leo's shouts of pain still rang in his ears. Nico had had dreams about Tartarus before, but they had always been about his past experiences. Now he saw what Leo was going through right now, and it was worse than any of the old dreams.

For a second, Nico considered getting up and finding Hazel, just so she knew he was okay, but he dismissed the thought. Right now, the most important thing was getting in touch with Leo. So he collapsed back into bed and closed his eyes once more.

* * *

"Leo! Leo, can you hear me?" He was sure he was hallucinating. The pain was making him imagine things. But why would he imagine _Nico's_ voice, of all people?

"Can you hear me? Blink twice for yes."

Leo hesitated, and then blinked twice. "Oh, thank gods. Listen, Leo, I overheard Gaea. I know that she wants you to mislead us, and because of that, you won't be able to. You can stop this torture. Just tell Gaea you'll do it. You can trust me. I won't let the others pay attention to the false stuff she forces you to tell us."

Leo screwed up his eyes in confusion. The ropes were agony – not only did his spine feel like it was breaking in two, but they were chafing into his wrists, on top of it all. The pain stopped him from thinking clearly, but he knew there was no way in Hades that Nico could've magically appeared in Tartarus, just to tell him that. "You're… lying," he got out through clenched teeth. "A Cyclops . . . mimicking Nico . . . Trying to confuse me . . . "

"I'm not!" the-voice-that-sounded-like-Nico protested. "Leo, you have to listen to me! You don't have to keep getting . . . getting _stretched_ like that! You don't have to protect us! We understand!"

Leo ignored the voice and focused on not screaming. His vision was bathed in red and crowded with black.

"Look, Leo, it's really me," the-voice-that-sounded-like-Nico pleaded. "Would a Cyclops know that I found you leaning over the railing of the _Argo II_ one night, completely passed out from exhaustion, and I had to pull you back before you fell? Would it know that you saved my life that time a giant bird-thing dive-bombed me and you shot it out of the air with fire?"

Leo's eyes shot open and he looked around frantically. But Nico was nowhere in sight. "Fine," he muttered. "If you're real . . . where are you?"

"This is, uh, a dream-message or something," Nico told him. "I don't know what the technical term is. But in them, you can hear but not see me."

Leo wanted to ignore the voice-that-sounded-like-Nico, but the offer was too tempting. "You won't let the others believe a word I say?" he asked anxiously.

"I won't."

"Swear on the Styx?"

"I swear on the Styx, Leo! Now, for all the gods' sakes, get Gaea to call off the torture!"

With that, the voice-that-sounded-like-Nico faded. Leo writhed in pain for a few more minutes, and then it was all too much. He was too weak to hold out any longer. Feeling like a traitor, he called out, "All right . . . Gaea! You win! I'll . . . do . . . what you want!"

Immediately, the ropes slackened. _Excellent,_ she purred. _I knew you would see sense eventually, Leo Valdez._

Now that he wasn't being pulled in two different directions, the water bed really _did_ feel wonderful - but Leo wasn't about to be tricked again. He rolled off the bed and crashed to the hard ground before passing out.

* * *

Nico woke up again. This time, he went to find Hazel right away, ignoring how weak he felt. The others had to know about Gaea's plans as soon as possible. He had no idea when she might put them into action.

* * *

"Whoa, slow down, Nico," Percy said. The kid was sitting in a chair, looking as pale as the sail that was flapping overhead. Annabeth was still absorbed in the notes on Leo's wall, but everyone else had assembled around the son of Hades. "So Leo's okay? You know that for sure?"

Nico winced. "I wouldn't say he's _okay_," he told them. "He's Gaea's prisoner, and he's just been stretched half to death. But he's alive."

Hazel sighed in relief, looking like the sky had just been lifted off her shoulders. "At least there's that."

Piper nodded, but she looked uncertain. "What were you saying about him sending an Iris-message, Nico?"

His eyes clouded. Percy figured that it hadn't been easy for him to dream about Tartarus again, or to see Leo stuck down there. But his voice didn't waver as he said, "Gaea's forcing him to IM us and tell us false information about the weapons he built. He was being hurt because he refused, so I told him that he could do it, and we just wouldn't believe what he was telling us. I just hope . . . Well, he wasn't entirely sure that I was real," he said ruefully. "I hope he trusted me."

"Assuming that he did," Percy said, "we should expect an Iris-message from him sometime soon?"

Nico nodded.

"Then I'd better get Annabeth. That sounds like something we should all be here for."

As soon as Percy convinced Annabeth to take a break and dragged her onto the deck, Leo popped into life right in front of them. Although they had been expecting it, each demigod still gasped in surprise at the sight. "Hey guys," he said, looking down at the ground. "I escaped from my chains for a minute – Gaea captured me – but I have to make this quick before she finds out that I'm gone." The words rang falsely in Hazel's ears, but she still forgot why he was there for a moment. In those two seconds after he appeared, she was sure that he was just calling to tell them that he would be out of Tartarus any minute.

"How . . . An Iris-message . . . ?" she asked in spite of herself. "There's no sunlight down there."

"Oh, you know . . . I pulled a flashlight and a spray bottle out of my tool belt, used one hand to spray, one hand to shine the light, and my foot to flip a drachma into the rainbow. I'm flexible like that." Leo looked nervous and uncomfortable. Just by looking at him, Hazel could tell that Nico had been right about Gaea's plan.

Finally, Leo lifted his eyes to them. When he saw Percy and Annabeth looking more or less all right, he broke into a sudden grin. "I'm really glad to see you guys are okay," he told them. It was the first thing the son of Hephaestus had said that the assembled demigods knew was true.

"We're glad to see _you're_ okay," Piper said hoarsely. "We've been worried for days. . . ."

For a while, no one spoke. Leo seemed to be drinking in the slight sunlight that filtered through the Iris-message. Then he cleared his throat abruptly. "So, uh, I called because I wanted to make sure that you guys knew how to use the tools I made."

"Yeah, I've been studying—uh, I've been studying them, but I was a little confused." Leo had cut Annabeth off by looking at the ground underneath him pointedly. By the thankful look he shot her when she changed what she was going to say, Annabeth could tell that Gaea didn't know about the notes that he had written all over his walls. How could she? He hadn't been on the ground at the time. Annabeth hid a smile. That was one advantage they had over Gaea. Mother Nature thought they were hopeless at managing the _Argo II_ without Leo onboard. But the son of Hephaestus had left instructions.

"Well, that's why I'm here," he said, forcing a smile. "To tell you how they work! So, uh, first I guess you need to know the access code for the Archimedes sphere." He started fiddling with the hem of his shirt before he kept going. She watched his fingers with interest and surprise, then started typing on her laptop. "The code is, uh, Thirteen, Apollo, Heracles, Kappa, Nine, Epsilon, Alpha." Annabeth nodded like she believed him, but she wasn't fooled. He'd written the real access code near the beginning of his notes. "And if you want to build an amazing secret weapon that Gaea will never see coming . . . " He looked down and fiddled with his shirt some more. "Try Diana, Eight, Minotaur, Eota, Chimera, Beta, Four."

"I understand, Leo," Annabeth told him, putting as much meaning into those three words as she could manage.

He glanced up at her, read her expression, saw her laptop, and grinned. "Good. Then I guess I'll see you . . . " His face closed off, and he looked away. Annabeth knew why. The son of Hephaestus had no idea if he would ever see any of them again.

Hazel let out a gasp. "Leo . . . Your hair . . . "

When he had turned, the other demigods could see that Leo's hair was plastered to his skull. It wasn't just water or sweat that held it in place, though – it was blood. And that blood covered half of his head.

"Gods, Leo, what happened to you?" Jason asked.

Self-consciously, Leo's fingers brushed his skull, and he winced. "Oh, that. It's just . . . You know . . . Cranberry juice."

"Right," Piper said, glaring at him accusingly. "And your shoulder isn't _really_ bent at a funny angle, it's just—"

Something brown slammed into that shoulder, and Leo cursed and stumbled. "So, I've got to go," he told them hurriedly. "Be safe." Something else hurtled towards him. This time, he fell forward, straight into the Iris-message, and the son of Hephaestus was gone.

"Leo!" Piper cried out before she could stop herself.

"That didn't look good," Frank muttered.

"He's in Tartarus," Nico told him sadly. "It probably _wasn't_ good."

Hazel sighed. "It's too bad that whole message was just one of Gaea's tricks. At least we saw that he was alive, but . . . with Gaea watching his every word, Leo couldn't tell us _anything_."

Annabeth smiled suddenly. "That's where you're wrong, Hazel."

The others turned to her in astonishment. "What?"

"Gaea was watching his every _word_," Annabeth explained, "but the real message Leo gave us wasn't spoken. Didn't you notice how much he was fiddling with his shirt?"

Percy nodded. "I thought he was just nervous," he said.

Annabeth shook her head. "Whatever his other fingers were doing, his left index finger was tapping out a pattern. It was Morse code."

Piper's eyes widened. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I wrote it all down." She showed her laptop to them. She had transcribed every one of his dots and dashes onto a Word document. "Just give me a second to get a good translator."

In reality, it took her about thirty seconds. When she was done, she quickly skimmed the message, and her triumphant expression earlier faded into a worried crease between her eyebrows.

"What is it?" Piper asked anxiously.

Annabeth read it out loud. "Don't listen me. Gaea trick. Tell camp keep lookout, Gaea wants girl sacrifice. Don't touch ground. Be ready, big attack coming for you. Good luck. Bye. Sorry couldn't help more." She looked up at the others. "He repeated it twice, just to be sure."

The others were silent for a while, their thoughts rolling as one – worry for Leo, fear for their respective camps, and nervousness about the big attack competing for space in their brains.

Eventually, Percy stood up, frowning. "If there's a big attack heading our way, we should prepare for it. Annabeth, have you learned anything from Leo's cabin?"

She nodded, smiling grimly. "Gaea's expecting us to blow ourselves up with a faulty code. Instead, I'm going to introduce her army to a whole new weapons force."

"Good," Jason said, getting to his feet. "Meanwhile, I'm going to get a message to camp like Leo suggested. It sounds like Gaea's willing to settle for _any_ girl demigod now, not just one of you three."

Hazel paled. "If Gaea still rises, despite everything . . . "

Frank hugged her shoulders comfortingly. "She won't," he promised. "We'll figure it out."

Just then, Festus started creaking and whirring like crazy. Annabeth tilted her head and listened (Leo had left the equivalent of a Festus-dictionary in his notes as well). She frowned. "We'd better figure it out fast. That was the radar. Gaea's army is an hour out and gaining on us."

"_Gaining_?" Percy asked. "How?"

Festus made a few more noises. As Annabeth translated his squeaks, her frown deepened. "I don't know how it's possible," she told the rest of the seven (plus Nico). "But they're flying."

* * *

Leo woke up. Once again he was chained to something big and heavy (he couldn't see exactly what it was in the darkness), his head was pounding, and he was still trapped deep in Tartarus. But honestly, he didn't give a Styx. In fact, he was happy enough to smile. Annabeth had understood his Morse code message, and he was sure she'd translated it by now. His friends wouldn't try to use the fake codes he'd given them, they would prepare for the massive attack, camp would be warned about Gaea's plans to abduct a girl camper, and everyone would be fine. Gaea wouldn't win. That more than outweighed whatever problems Leo was facing right now.

Suddenly, the chains around Leo tightened, cutting off his air a bit. He choked for a moment before forcing himself to breathe shallowly. "Gaea," he gasped out, "what do you want?"

Queen Dirt Face appeared in the ground at his feet. Her eyes were still closed – thank the gods – but Leo could _feel_ her power growing. If he could move even an inch, he would've scooted backwards. As it was, he had to content himself with shrinking as far back into the something-big-and-heavy as he could manage. _Nothing from you, Leo Valdez_, she said, chuckling. He swore that that lady was going to collapse Tartarus with one of those laughs someday. He just hoped it wasn't while he was there. _At least not at the moment. I just thought you might like to know who will be sacrificed with you on August 1__st__. _

Leo's grin dropped off his face. "But – I thought–" He mentally kicked himself and didn't finish the sentence.

_You thought your friends would warn your camp after the message you tapped out to them?_ Gaea asked, sounding amused. Leo's heart nearly stopped. _Yes, Leo Valdez, I noticed your Morse code. But it really doesn't matter. Even if Annabeth won't use your false codes, she still doesn't know the real ones._ Leo was about to smile at that – Gaea didn't know how wrong she was – but he hid it at the last second. He didn't want Mother Nature getting suspicious. _Besides, your friends may have warned Camp Half-Blood, but do you really think your camp would have shared that information with Camp Jupiter? The two are not really on speaking terms, after all. . . ._

That time, Leo was ninety-nine percent sure his heart _did_ stop. "You . . . got a _Roman . . . _?" he choked out.

_Oh, yes_, Gaea said with evident pleasure. _As I grow stronger, I've realized that I don't need_ two _demigods out of the seven for my sacrifice – just one. You_ _will fill that slot nicely. But I did not choose just any female Roman to be the other half of the sacrifice that will wake me. No, I had one particular girl in mind._

Leo's throat went dry. He started to smoke with worry. "You're not saying . . . "

Gaea's eyes were still closed. . . . But when she smiled at Leo, displaying a set of disgusting dirt teeth, Leo got the feeling that she was more awake than ever. _Leo Valdez, you will be sacrificed on August 1__st__ – and this girl will die alongside you._

Two Cyclopes lumbered into the area with something human-sized between them. One was holding a torch so that Leo could see. He could feel the world spinning around him as his brain processed what he was seeing. This was _bad_. This was unspeakably, horrifically, indescribably bad.

Leo stared into the obsidian eyes of Reyna Concessi, lone praetor of Rome.

* * *

**"BEEEEEEP."**

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	4. Part IV

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**Disclaimer: ************"Hello, dearest readers. I do not own PJO. I am not Rick Riordan. Not male. Don't have gray hair. Don't have a book published. I claim rights to nothing except the plot." *pause* "This message will be repeated for each chapter. Please leave a message after the tone."**

* * *

**Part IV**

* * *

She stared back, hatred burning through her dark irises and searing into Leo's heart. _It wasn't me!_ he wanted to say. _I didn't fire on your camp! It was Gaea! It was the eidolons! Don't hate me! _But he couldn't seem to get a word out. Instead, he studied her. Reyna was gagged and chained, but otherwise looked mostly unhurt, which told Leo that she had been taken by surprise – the ground had opened up and just swallowed her, most likely – because if there was one thing he knew about the daughter of Bellona, it was that she would never have gone down without a fight.

Gaea's face turned towards Reyna too, shifting the earth around her as she moved. _Yes, you will make a lovely sacrifice_, she mused. _Both of you. The son of the god of the forge, and the daughter of the goddess of war. One who builds, and one who destroys. A Greek, and a Roman. You will balance each other out. I will awaken more powerful than ever before._ Once again, Gaea's laugh shook all of Tartarus, from the ground to the ceiling. Leo was used to it by now (and anyway, he still couldn't move), but Reyna stumbled. The Cyclopes made no move to help her, and she landed on her side, unable to use her chained hands to break her fall. Leo winced and looked away in sympathy, so she didn't have to be embarrassed as she struggled to get up.

Eventually, Gaea's chuckles subsided, and she continued. _You should be happy, demigods. Your deaths will give rise to a new era! _She kept rambling about her future victory, but Leo ignored her. His thoughts were whirling. With Reyna gone, _Octavian_ would be put in charge of the Romans, and Leo shuddered to think about what that would mean for his home. Leo had already been thinking of ways to get back to the surface, but now he planned even more frantically. Now he had bigger problems than his own life to worry about. If he couldn't find a way out of here, the pointless deaths of hundreds of demigods, the rise of Gaea, _and_ the end of Western civilization would all be on his hands.

No pressure or anything.

* * *

Annabeth stood behind Leo's fancy new machine, which she had dragged out of his room and set up at the back of the ship. She kept one eye in the scope, looking out for any flying monsters.

Gods of Olympus, did she find some.

"They're here!" she yelled. "Oh, Styx," she added in a mutter. "No wonder Festus sounded confused. . . ."

The monsters weren't really flying – at least, most of them weren't. Instead, they were riding chariots propped up by storm spirits and pulled onward by gryphons. There were five monsters in each chariot – not including the storm spirits and gryphons – and twenty chariots. Annabeth cursed. Even with Leo's machines, the fight was going to be extremely hard to win.

"Annabeth!" Piper shouted, bursting out onto the deck and sprinting towards her. "Hazel and Nico are ready downstairs. We're just waiting for your signal. . . ." She caught sight of the army coming towards them. "Oh," she said in a small voice. "That's . . . That's a lot of monsters."

Annabeth nodded, keeping a steady watch on the monsters. "Listen, Piper, tell Frank, Jason, and Percy about the situation, so they're ready to play their parts. Then check on Coach Hedge up at the helm – I wouldn't put it past that crazy satyr to try and change the plan, but make sure he doesn't. After that, you can go back to your position by Nico and Hazel. Use the oar openings to see, and fire at will."

"Okay," Piper said. Then she hesitated. "Are you sure you'll be all right over here? On your own? Gaea still wants a girl sacrifice. . . ."

Annabeth shook her head. "I'll be fine, Piper. The boys will be heading over here soon enough, anyway. And I need you downstairs. Now go!"

Annabeth heard the sound of Piper's sneakers as she ran off to follow Annabeth's instructions. She sighed and prayed that she hadn't been lying to Piper when she said she would be fine. Then the first Laistrygonians started chucking bronze cannonballs, and Annabeth was too busy to think about praying.

She flicked a couple switches on the machine, and a missile shot out of it, draping a net over the gryphons pulling the first chariot. For a second, the storm spirits struggled to keep it aloft, and then they gave up and moved to the side. The chariot plummeted like – well, like any chariot filled with bloodthirsty monsters would plummet – fast and sudden, with a lot of cursing.

She shot another net at the next chariot, but those gryphons were smarter. They veered away so that only one of them got tangled in the net, and then one of the _dracaenae_ in the chariot cut that gryphon loose. She had only taken one monster down, instead of ten. Annabeth decided to adopt a new strategy.

She quickly switched out the ammunition and shot a new missile at a chariot. It opened like a hydra arrow, so that several coils of Celestial bronze sprang out and wrapped around the drivers of the chariot and the reins. Confused, the gryphons tried to fly in a thousand different directions, and the chariot ended up flipping upside down, sending all the monsters inside spinning to their deaths. Annabeth winced – that was a nasty way to go – but she didn't feel too bad. After all, they _had_ been planning on killing her. She shoved a new missile inside the machine and fired that. It locked onto the out-of-control chariot and followed its erratic movements until it caught up to the gryphons. The result was nothing too special – just an average explosion that took down whatever had been left of that chariot.

Annabeth smiled grimly. Two chariots down, eighteen to go.

Then, naturally, it all went wrong.

She fired another hydra missile at a new chariot, but the missile malfunctioned, opening inside the machine and clogging all the gears. Annabeth could probably fix it, but it would take her time – something she didn't have right now. She cursed and abandoned the contraption. "All right, guys!" she shouted. "You're up!"

As she yelled, she ran back to the ballistae. She hadn't used them originally because they were running a little low on Greek fire, but now it looked like she didn't have another choice. She spun one around and fired multiple blasts. A couple monsters went down here and there, but the rest dodged. Annabeth loaded a new round of Greek fire and swung the machine towards a new target. She was about to fire. . . . But then something made her hesitate.

The monsters were looked terrified, and Annabeth wasn't sure why. It wasn't like _she_ was a threat against so many. . . . Suddenly, she realized that she was standing in a massive shadow and turned around slowly. What she saw took her breath away.

A massive wall of water was rising up behind her, and at its center was Percy, holding his arms up and frowning in concentration. She had told him to use the clouds to gather water to fight with, but she hadn't been expecting _this_ much power. Then again, she shouldn't be surprised. After all, this was _Percy_ she was thinking about.

"Ready, Jason?" Percy shouted.

"Definitely!"

Percy grinned and thrust his arms forward. The water crashed into the monster army, knocking several monsters off the backs of the chariots, but Percy didn't let the water fall to the ground or turn back into clouds. Instead, he held the water around the chariots. Annabeth raised her eyebrows. What was he waiting for?

It became clear soon enough. Whatever clouds hadn't been condensed into water quickly grouped together and turned stormy gray, matching Annabeth's own eyes in their color and intensity. Suddenly, lightning crackled out of the clouds and headed straight for the monsters encased in water.

Percy had managed to trap four chariots in his condensed clouds.

Water was a fantastic conductor of electricity.

Gold was a good one too.

Electricity coursed through twenty regular monsters, thirty-two gryphons, and about fifty storm spirits.

The chariots plummeted, trailing dissolving monsters and gryphons in their wake.

The storm spirits weren't dead yet, but the lightning and water had still disoriented them. It was a simple matter for Annabeth to take them out with the ballistae.

"Yeah!" Percy yelled, pumped up on adrenaline. "Take _that_, Gaea!" He pumped his fist in the air, and leftover droplets of water swirled around him, forming another one of his specialty hurricanes. He landed lightly on the ground next to Annabeth and grinned. His hurricane widened to encircle both of them, and Annabeth shivered at the amount of force whistling around her. Her boyfriend was _powerful_. "How was that?" he asked her.

Of course, she would never admit that to his face. She shrugged. "Only four chariots, Jackson? I expected at least six from you."

He laughed and pulled Riptide out of his pocket. "You know you were impressed," he said.

At that moment, ten cannonballs whistled out of the side of the _Argo II_, hurtling into two chariots and completely destroying all of the monsters around them. Percy whistled in appreciation. "Those are about three times cooler than regular cannonballs," he said. "Leo makes some awesome toys."

Annabeth nodded sadly. "I just wish he was here to pilot them. He would have loved to see these inventions in action."

Percy brushed his fingers against Annabeth's hand. "I know, Wise Girl," he said. "But we can't worry about him right now. We've got a battle to win. We owe it to Leo to kick some monster butt, right?"

In response, Annabeth grinned and drew her bronze dagger out of her belt. "For once, Seaweed Brain, you've got a point. Let's take them down."

* * *

Leo took a deep breath. "Hey!" he shouted towards the _empousae_ guarding both him and the scary praetor. "Can I get a bathroom break now?"

"What?" they growled.

"Well, you don't expect me to pee my pants, do you?" Leo asked innocently, trying not to turn too red. He couldn't believe he was speaking like this _in front of Reyna_. But he couldn't go back now. The best he could do was avoid looking at her (probably disgusted) expression."Come on, ladies. If you're not going to give me a change of clothes, you could at least let me use the bathroom. Otherwise, I'll _really_ start to stink."

They hesitated for a bit longer, but Leo pleaded until the annoyed monsters finally gave in. While one stayed behind with Reyna, the other unlocked the chains around Leo, who mentally cheered as he was led out of the clearing and to a deserted area of the monsters' camp. It smelled awful – Leo suspected that the entire army went to the bathroom here – but he tried not to pay too much attention to the smell. He could move again, and that was all that mattered. Now he could put Phase One of his plan into action.

Leo stood there as the _empousa_ stared at him, obviously waiting for him to get started. Leo stared right back. "Well?" he asked. "Aren't you going to unlock my hands? Unless you want to undo my fly for me. . . ." He left the sentence hanging in the air, and the _empousa_ shivered in obvious repulsion.

"Fine," she said, holding her nose up in disgust. "But I'm going to lock one end of this chain around your waist and the other around this boulder, so you can't wander off too far. And no funny business, or you will feel the wrath of my goddess's entire army." She smiled, exposing her vampire fangs. "And I promise that wouldn't be pleasant for you."

Leo suppressed a shiver and waited patiently as the _empousa_ took off the chains around his hands and secured the chain around his waist, like she'd promised. Then he ran around the corner from her, claiming that he needed privacy to do his business. As soon as he was hidden from sight, he burned through one of the chain-links, and then caught the disconnected links before they could clatter to the ground. He carefully lowered them to the ground, fighting hard to hold in his laughter. The vampire-lady should have known better than to secure a fire-user with something as pitiful as an old metal chain.

As soon as he was done, he used the bathroom – because he really did have to go – and hurried off to find the tallest stalagmite around.

Eventually, he came to one that towered at least fifteen feet above the ground. Knowing that the empousa would come looking for him any minute, Leo quickly reached into his tool belt and pulled out a couple of parts, a few screws, some wire, and a screwdriver. He twisted wires and screwed together some of the parts and pulled random bits and pieces out of his belt, adding them into the contraption, his brow furrowed in concentration. Luckily, while he had been working on the _Argo II_, Leo had taken to sticking extra bits and pieces in his tool belt, just in case he had to make repairs in the future. A few of those bits had actually been used for repairs, but many of the rest were still tucked away in his belt's magical components. Leo was calling on those now, so that he could build his escape contraption.

However, before he could finish, he heard the _empousa_ call, "Are you _done_ yet, boy?" If she caught him free from his bonds and fiddling with a machine, Leo wasn't sure what would happen – but he knew it would be _bad_. Fortunately, he had planned for this. He pulled a nylon rope out of his belt, tied it to his unfinished contraption securely, and tied the other end into a lasso. He tossed the lasso over the stalagmite, pulled it tight, and then hoisted the contraption up into the air. He prayed that since it wasn't technically resting on the ground, Gaea wouldn't find it, but he didn't really have any other options. The contraption was already too big to fit in his tool belt, and it would get plenty bigger before he was done. _I'll just have to be distracting enough that the Lady Dirt Face doesn't notice something as small as a dangling metal contraption_, he thought. A slow grin spread across his face as he ran back to his metal chain and welded it back to the links around his waist (but weakly, so that it would be easy to break again). _Luckily, I'm good at being distracting._

* * *

Unfortunately, he didn't get a chance. Reyna decided to be distracting first.

The _empousa_ had led Leo back to the clearing without a second glance, simply rolling her eyes when Leo explained that he had a shy bladder. She had fastened his chain around the boulder and pulled him tightly against it, but Leo hardly noticed. Reyna and he were one step closer to freedom.

It was about then that Leo realized that said praetor was no longer in the same clearing as him. At first, he just assumed that they had moved her to another space. That made his plans a tad more complicated – he would have to find Reyna before they could escape – but he didn't worry too much. Everything would work out. It had to. They would be fine.

Suddenly, an angry shout pierced the air. Leo's head jerked up. Who had a reason to sound that upset? Only one person came to mind.

"You knocked out your guard!" The voice came from somewhere in the darkness. "You escaped from your chains. You set a tripwire for my kin who tried to follow you. But it doesn't matter. We got you back, and now Gaea will deal with you."

Right on cue, a few Laistrygonians walked into the clearing, carrying a bruised and furious praetor between them. Leo muttered a string of curses under his breath. He hadn't been able to tell Reyna about his escape plan with all the guards around, and she probably didn't think he was bright enough to come up with one. She had tried to escape at the first opportunity. And obviously, she had gotten caught.

The Laistrygonians dropped Reyna on the ground, but before she could struggle to her feet, earthen tendrils curled around her calves and forearms. The mighty praetor was forced onto her knees and elbows, and she was not happy about it. She cursed the ground angrily, but the only reaction from Mother Nature was an amused chuckle that seemed to bounce off of every object in Tartarus.

_My dear sacrifice_, Gaea said mockingly, _did you really think you would be able to_ escape_? Your plan was half-formed, Reyna Concessi. I see all that touches the ground here. I noticed the second you undid your bonds, and my army was able to track you down immediately. You had no chance._

Reyna spat on the dirt in front of her. Leo was impressed by the bold move, but it was futile. All Reyna got for her trouble was a stalagmite that erupted from the ground and smashed into her ribs. She barely stifled a moan. The stalagmite sank back into the earth.

_We could be cordial about your fate_, Gaea said. _You could wait quietly for August 1st and not cause any trouble, and in turn, I could keep you from feeling . . . unnecessary pain._ She smiled, and even from this distance, the sight disgusted Leo. _However, you have already tried to escape, and you have already insulted me, and you have barely been here a day. I think that a_ lesson _is the only way to make you behave. _This_ pain is most certainly necessary._

Leo gulped, worried for Reyna. That did _not_ sound good.

A _dracaena_ stepped out of the shadows. Instead of her usual trident and net, she carried a coil of _something_ under her arm. A rope?

"What are you going to do, then?" Reyna yelled. "You're planning on killing me anyway."

Leo's eyebrows raised in surprise. He had said almost the exact same thing when Gaea had asked him to betray his friends. Was it possible—? Could he and the praetor actually have something in _common_? But his raised eyebrows quickly furrowed together as he remembered what exactly had happened after his defiance. He frowned. There was no _way_ this would be good.

_There are other punishments besides death_, Gaea said quietly. _I think you are quite familiar with one of them, at least._

Before Leo could react, the _dracaena_ unfurled the coil and brought it whistling down towards Reyna. It met her back with a sickening wet thud, and Leo realized that it wasn't a rope after all. It was a whip.

The strike must have taken Reyna by surprise, but she didn't scream. She barely even flinched. Leo couldn't help but feel impressed – but then the whip cracked across Reyna's back again, and the praetor unconsciously arched her back, fighting futilely again her earthen bonds.

Gaea's laugh rumbled through Tartarus. The _dracaena_ raised the whip again. Leo spoke without thinking.

"It wasn't her!"

The whip froze suspended in the air, and all its momentum was lost. It drooped listlessly.

Gaea turned towards Leo. Even though her eyes were closed, he could have sworn that she was glaring. _What did you say?_

Leo steeled himself for pain and torture and the worst day of his life. But he couldn't let Reyna get hurt any longer. It wasn't right.

"I said, it wasn't her," Leo told Gaea calmly. "It was my idea." He took a deep breath. "While I was pretending to be going to the bathroom, I ran back here and picked the lock on Reyna's chains. Her guard didn't notice. I was quiet, and I was fast." Reyna twisted around to stare at him incredulously, but Leo glared at her, willing her to stay silent. If she spoke, they would _both_ be in trouble. "Then I knocked out the _empousa_ on guard." He tried to remember what else the Laistrygonians had said Reyna had done. "I set a trap for anyone who tried to follow her – a tripwire." He hesitated. "Then I stayed behind, hoping I could distract everyone while she escaped. Hoping I could give her a decent head start. But you caught her too soon."

Gaea smiled, but there was no humor in her expression. _You _willingly _let her escape without you? Why, Leo Valdez? Don't you want to be free too?_

"It's more important for Reyna to escape than for me to," Leo found himself saying. Incredibly, he knew that every word was true. "She's the only one that could keep our camps from killing each other. Without her there, Octavian will stir up a war. Countless lives will be wasted. Reyna _has_ to get up to the surface."

_How . . . noble of you_, Gaea said, her lips pulled back in a sneer. Leo suppressed a shudder. _But you do realize that if what you say is true, you will be punished in Reyna's stead? _She paused to let the thought sink in. _Actually, you have been an annoyance ever since I brought you here. You insulted me, you circumvented my plans for you, and now _this_. You need to learn a lesson even more than Reyna does. I think I will make your pain _worse_._

To punctuate that thought, a small boulder came out of nowhere and whacked Leo in his injured skull. He wished she would stop _doing_ that. He was going to get permanent brain damage – assuming he could survive long enough for permanent brain damage to affect him.

As if she thought that wasn't enough, a succession of projectiles ranging from small pebbles to massive rocks rained down on Leo's head. The pain spread throughout his entire body, nearly as bad as being stretched in Procrustes's water bed. His vision blurred out of focus, and Leo slumped forward against his chains. They were rusty and scraped his arms, but he barely noticed. He had bigger problems.

_I could stop here, Leo Valdez. Just admit that Reyna acted without your help. Why be punished for something you didn't do?_

The thought was enticing. He was already aching all over. Did he really need to be _whipped_ too?

He stopped himself before he could open his mouth, knowing that if he did, he would admit to the lie. _Think of it this way, Valdez_, he told himself. _You're already aching all over. How bad could a whipping be?_

Leo looked straight at Gaea's hideous face. "But I did do it," he told her.

The Lady Dirt Face sighed. _Very well, Valdez. If you insist on being so stubborn, then I have no choice but to punish you._

At her command, the _empousa_ undid his chains. Leo landed hard on the ground, too weak to use his arms to break his fall. His eyesight dulled into vague impressions of colors.

"At least let me take my shirt off first," he found himself mumbling. "I'd prefer it if it didn't get ruined. I've only got the one."

Gaea chuckled. A few more pebbles found their way to Leo's head. He wondered if it looked like a bloody mess by now. _Amusing as always, Leo Valdez. _Her voice sounded strange and distorted. Leo figured that it was probably due to his massive concussion. _Go ahead._

It took way too much effort, but Leo managed to roll onto his side, find the hem of his camp t-shirt, and yank it over his head, sending fresh pain rocketing through his skull. He wasn't even sure why he had asked, other than he thought it would be easier to soak up his blood if the shirt was whole. If it was in tatters, the bits might get stuck in the holes in his back.

_Just remember, Leo Valdez. The pain you feel is your own fault_. Leo was too exhausted to reply. The _empousa_ kicked him back onto his stomach, and he felt dirt encircle his forearms and calves the same way they had Reyna's. He wondered if he was supposed to get onto his knees too, but decided against it. His muscles were rubber. He would just collapse again.

Suddenly, a sharp pain burned in a line across his back. Leo hadn't thought he was capable of speaking, but a groan escaped his lips anyway.

Gaea's laugh melted into a sound like a roaring engine, and Leo thought wistfully of the _Argo II_. If he hadn't jumped into Tartarus in Percy's and Annabeth's place, he could be standing on the deck right now, completely unharmed. _If you hadn't jumped into Tartarus in Percy's and Annabeth's place, two of your friends would be dead right now._ The voice in Leo's head had come from nowhere. Leo had never heard it before. _You did a good thing. A _brave _thing. Your mother would be proud._

Leo decided he rather liked the voice. He clung to that thought as the whip cracked over him again and again, searing his false confession into his back. He would have scars from this punishment for the rest of his life – not that the rest of his life would last very long if he kept this up.

Leo felt like he had been steamrolled by an Army tank, then crushed under his beloved warship, then dragged behind a chariot on a rocky surface for ten miles, and now he was being repeatedly chopped in half with an ax. There was a low hum that roared in his ears every time the whip touched him. Leo realized vaguely that the noise belonged to _him_. He was moaning – sometimes even crying out. But he couldn't bring himself to care. The pain was too intense. He couldn't bring himself to care about much of anything.

_Your mother would be proud._

The voice was back. Leo grabbed onto that thought, trying and failing to use it to push back the pain.

_Your mother would be proud._

Black spots appeared in Leo's already-fuzzy vision. They slowly widened to cover the entire scene.

_Your mother would be proud_.

It was the last thing Leo thought as he fell into blissful darkness.

* * *

**And this is the last pre-written chapter, too. . . . I can't even . . . Why do I do this? D:**

** . . . Poor Leo . . . **

**Review, please? ;)**


	5. Part V

***does a super awkward happy dance* 67 reviews! You guys are the best! The reviews were so fun to get (and loads of fun to read, too :P). Congratulations to fabulouslaughter, the 50th reviewer!**

**And aren't you guys proud of me? I wrote this in six days! See how fast I can write when awesome reviews motivate me? ;)**

**Anyway, enjoy the chapter! :D**

**Disclaimer: ****"Hello, dearest readers. I do not own PJO. I am not Rick Riordan. Not male. Don't have gray hair. Don't have a book published. I claim rights to nothing except the plot." *pause* "This message will be repeated for each chapter. Please leave a message after the tone."**

* * *

**Part V**

* * *

Leo woke up lying on his stomach, which was odd because he always slept on his back. He kind of understood why he hadn't this time though. His back felt like it had been ripped to shreds. Actually . . . The memory of Reyna's attempted escape, Gaea's threat of punishment, Leo's intervention, and the _dracaena_'s fierce whipping slammed back into his brain without warning, and he winced involuntarily. "Ripped to shreds" was probably an accurate description of what his back looked like right now.

"Valdez? Are you awake?"

At first, the words didn't register. And then Leo realized that those were the first words Reyna had ever said to him directly. Frankly, he was surprised she hadn't called him something stronger than "Valdez", since she still thought he had fired on New Rome on purpose. The sheer shock of that idea was enough to force Leo into raising his head.

Reyna was leaning against a stalagmite, arms crossed and eyes cautious. "So you're up."  
Leo started to nod, but his head throbbed so painfully that he had to drop it to the ground again. He withheld a gasp of pain. "Yeah. Um, Reyna, before we talk any more, there's something you should—"

"Why did you lie for me, Valdez?" she asked suddenly. Her voice was hard, but with a hesitance that gave Leo hope for forgiveness. "You blew up my home. You started a civil war. Why do you care about what happens to me?"

"First of all, I _didn't_ lie for you," Leo said pointedly. He lifted his head again to stare her down. "_I_ came up with the idea for the escape attempt . . . _remember_?" He flicked his eyes towards the ground.

Thank the gods, Reyna understood. "Of course," she said quickly.

"But if I _had_," he added, "this would be why. I _didn't_ destroy New Rome, Praetor." He looked at her hard, willing her to believe him. "Well, maybe my body did, but it wasn't my fault. I was possessed by one of Gaea's minions, an _eidolon_. It purposely waited until Octavian was on that ship to start firing the ballistae and blowing up buildings. Gaea wanted to create as much tension between camps as possible, and I . . . " He swallowed hard. "I came along as a convenient opportunity to do just that."

Relief and doubt fought for the upper hand in Reyna's eyes. "So you _don't_ hate Rome . . . ?" she asked. "You want _peace_? Then why did you guys fight us so hard in Charleston?"

Leo would have shrugged if it wouldn't have hurt so badly. "You wouldn't have believed us," he muttered. "We had to get to Rome to save Nico and stop the giants Ephialtes and Otis. Annabeth also needed to get started on her quest. We couldn't afford to try to reason with you guys. We knew it would be close to impossible, and at the very least, it would have taken a _long_ time. We were on a deadline that we had to meet. We had no choice."

Reyna was silent for a long time. "Say I believe you," she said eventually. "Do you have any proof?"

"I stopped the _dracaena_ from whipping you!" Leo said incredulously. "I didn't just watch as she tore you to shreds! Isn't that proof enough?"

Reyna looked apologetic. "You caused a lot of damage, Valdez. I have to be sure."

Something like sympathy rose up inside him. "I get it . . . I guess." He made the mistake of trying to nod again. This time, he couldn't keep himself from wincing. Reyna noticed. "Are you okay?"

He snorted. "In the last few days, I've been stretched, starved, repeatedly whacked in the shoulder, repeatedly whacked in the head, and whipped. I'm about as far from okay as a person can get without ending up in the Underworld."

There wasn't much either of them could add to that. Silence fell again. It was _hard_ to make conversation with somebody who had been actively trying to kill you for the last few weeks. Who knew?

Leo had always considered himself the resident chatterbox in _any_ situation, and _especially_ when the other person was a stone-cold praetor. But surprisingly, Reyna was the first one to break the quiet. "You know," she said, "you didn't have to speak up for me."

Leo looked up at her incredulously. "Are you _kidding_?" he asked. "I wasn't about to let you get _whipped_! I told you, your camp needs you. Besides," he added with an attempt at a grin, "what kind of a gentleman would that make me?"

Reyna rolled her eyes. "Your chivalry is appreciated, Sir Camp-Bomber, but I just meant . . . " She hesitated. "It wouldn't have hurt me as badly as it hurt you."

"_Excuse_ me?" Leo asked. "You saying I'm not macho or something? Because let me tell you, Praetor, I'm _very_ macho. If I could, uh, move without it burning, I would get up and prove to you how very macho I am."

Reyna didn't laugh, which he had expected . . . but come on, couldn't he have at least gotten a _smile_? Just to prove that she _was_ human after all? "That's not what I meant either," she said, covering her face with one hand. "I just . . . it wouldn't have hurt me as badly because . . . I'm used to it. I've, well . . . I've been whipped before."

For a moment, Leo was speechless. "I . . . Gods, Praetor," he said eventually, "I knew you Romans were _stricter_, but don't you think that's kind of a harsh punishment?" Just thinking about it made his back ache. "Couldn't they just, I don't know, make you do push-ups instead?"

Reyna shook her head. "Leo, I didn't get whipped at camp," she told him. "My sister and I used to work at a spa run by a sorceress, and she kept these pirates as guinea pigs, but then they escaped, and my sister and I got captured by the pirates, and they . . . well, it's a long story." She looked away. "That probably didn't make any sense. I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

Leo stared at her. _Pirates, Reyna? _he wanted to say. _Pirates as _guinea pigs_? What the _Styx_ are you talking about? And you know, I don't know why you're telling me this either. I don't know what's going on. I thought you hated me_. But if that were true, than why was she talking to him at all? Why had she bandaged up his shredded back? Because Leo knew there was no way either the _empousa_ or the _dracaena _had done that.

He took a longer look at the stone-cold praetor. She didn't seem so harsh in the dim light given off by a single flashlight lying on the ground some distance away. She didn't look angry or fierce, just . . . worn. Worried, probably for her legion. Torn over whether to believe his _eidolon_ story. Maybe even . . . scared for the future of the world? Could Reyna Concessi, the strongest, most dangerous Roman in the universe, be _scared_?

Leo made a decision. "You don't have to tell me anything," he said. "You barely even know me. But I think . . . I think there might be a way for you to trust me."

Reyna looked at him sadly. "I can't, Valdez. Not unless you have—"

"Proof, I know," Leo said. "But . . . what if I _do_?" He reached his hands into his tool belt and started tinkering.

"But . . . you said . . . "

"Okay, maybe _I_ don't have any proof," Leo said. "But what if Gaea told you herself?"

Reyna hesitated. "What makes you think—?"

"Gaea!" Leo yelled. "Come here!"

The Queen of Dirt answered him almost immediately. _What do you want, godspawn? _she asked. _A second round?_

"Ha," Leo said dryly. "Funny, Mother Nature. No, I was just wondering if you would tell Reyna all about your little _eidolon_ trick."

He held his assembled device inside his belt and pushed a button.

_You want me to tell her the _truth_?_ Gaea asked incredulously. _Why would I do that, Leo Valdez? The whole _point_ of my plan is to make sure_ _no Roman knows the truth. What you are suggesting would go directly against that._

"Well, yeah," Leo said, "but didn't you say yourself that there is no way out of here? That we'll be stuck down here until you bring us to the surface to sacrifice us? Isn't it more _devious_ to let Reyna live with the truth until then, knowing that she can't do anything to prevent the destruction that her legion will cause? It'd be like one of those 'Mwahaha you know the truth now that it is too late!' type deals. Very evil."

It seemed all of Tartarus was silent, holding their breaths in anticipation for Gaea's answer. Or at least, that's what Leo was doing. Eventually, Queen Dirt Face spoke. _Very well, Leo Valdez_, she said. _I will tell this daughter of war the truth._

"Great," he said. "Do it now."

_It is true, Reyna Concessi_, Gaea told her. _Leo Valdez was possessed by an_ eidolon _when he fired projectiles on your camp. He did not do that of his own free will. It was all my plan, so that your legion would get revenge on Camp Half-Blood. _Leo could imagine a smile spreading across Mother Earth's face, displaying her nasty earthen teeth. _So go ahead, trust Leo Valdez. He never wanted to hurt you Romans. He has in fact felt incredibly guilty since that day, even though it was not his fault. You can believe in his intentions, if you like. But it is too late to do you much good now._

Leo looked over at Reyna, whose mouth was open slightly. "Proof enough for you, Praetor?" he asked her quietly.

She looked down at him, and her eyes softened. "Yes, Valdez," she whispered. "I apologize for not believing you earlier."

He offered a smile—or at least, the closest imitation of a smile that he could manage—and pressed the button of his device again before speaking. "I don't blame you. It did look pretty bad." He glared at the ground. "Which was, of course, the whole point, wasn't it, Gaea?"

_Of course_. The goddess practically _purred_ in satisfaction. _Well, I suppose I shall leave you two alone now. Reyna Concessi, feel free to tell this godspawn how loud and long his screams echoed as my_ empousa _whipped a hole into his back. I'm sure he'd love to hear how pathetic he sounded. _And Gaea melted away.

Leo winced. _Pathetic?_ Gods, Reyna probably thought he was a total wimp right now, especially since she'd faced the same punishment before. How in Hades was he supposed to get her to trust his crazy escape plan if she thought he was _pathetic_? "So . . . echoing screams, eh?" he asked, trying for nonchalance. "Sorry about that. They were probably pretty annoying."

To his surprise, Reyna shook her head. "You _didn't_ scream, Valdez."

"Really?"

"Gaea lies about plenty of things, Valdez," Reyna said. "You didn't scream—or make _any_ noise, actually. I was kind of . . . impressed."

Leo lifted his head and stared at her. "Really?"

"Well, yeah," she said. "Lots of people would have squealed."

Leo tried to look strong and tough, which was hard to do while sprawled on the ground. "But not me," he said, trying—and failing—to grin cockily. "I told you. I'm macho."

Reyna sighed. "Right."

Leo hesitated. "Anyway . . . " he said, "um, thanks."

She started. "What?" She tilted her head towards him. "You're the one who saved me from getting whipped, Valdez. Why are you thanking _me_?"

"You fixed me," Leo said, his tone as straightforward as he could manage. "My back was bleeding everywhere, and you bandaged it up. And don't try to tell me that the _empousa_ did it because we both know that _that's_ a lie."

Leo could have sworn he saw her mouth twitch upwards. _So_ close to a smile. "All right, Valdez, you caught me," she said. "After they . . . were done, Gaea released me from those stupid earth cuffs and just got a Cyclops to chain my leg to a boulder instead." She lifted a leg and wiggled it, and for the first time, Leo noticed a metal chain that vanished into the darkness. He _had_ been wondering how she could be leaning against that stalagmite so comfortably. "You've got one too," she added, "in case you're wondering."

Leo stopped trying to twist around and look at his own leg. "How did you know I would try to loo—?"

"You're a male." Reyna said it bluntly, but the corner of her mouth lifted up again. Leo tried not to feel too proud. "Anyway, the chain's long enough that I could go over there and help you out." She shrugged. "Even though I still thought you hated my camp, it was the least I could do. I can't say I missed getting whipped."

"Well . . . I guess you're welcome, then, Praetor," Leo said in surprise. "But . . . I mean, my shirt's still intact—well, as intact as it was before I got whipped." He glanced down at the raggedy, dirty, bloody mess that was his pillow and his camp shirt, a forlorn look on his face. His shirts had always been raggedy and dirty—it was one of the side effects of being a mechanic—but this one was _extremely_ destroyed. It matched the way Leo's back felt.

"Yeah? So?"

Leo tore his eyes away from the orange mess of cloth and looked back at Reyna. "_So_, if you didn't use my shirt, where did the bandages come from?"

"Oh, _that_." Reyna shrugged. "I used my praetor's cloak." She turned around to show him. Leo stared in surprise at her back, plated in gold armor instead of hidden behind a purple veil. "You're dressed in Roman purple now, Valdez. Sorry about that."

Leo laughed, which _really_ hurt, but he ignored the pain. "That's all right, Praetor. I think I'll survive. It can be, like, a symbol of a future Greco-Roman alliance. The Greek who bombed your camp, wearing purple." He gestured towards his shirt. "I'd offer to let you wear orange in return, but I really don't think you want to go anywhere near this thing. It barely even qualifies as a shirt anymore." He paused. "In fact, it's so torn-up, I'm surprised you didn't just use _it_ to bandage my back. It would have been easier to rip."

Reyna shook her head, the faintest expression of amusement on her face. "It's so torn-up, it wouldn't have functioned as a bandage, Valdez. And it's so dirty, your back would have gotten infected. Besides, I've always wanted an excuse not to wear that cloak. It's a heavy, useless, unwieldy waste of fabric, if you ask me."

Leo grinned, and it didn't even turn into a grimace of pain. He felt so proud. "In that case, I'm happy to be of service, Praetor."

She hesitated. "You stopped me from getting whipped, Valdez. I think we're past the 'Praetor' stage by now. You can call me Reyna . . . if you want."

Leo's smile widened. He pretended to consider her offer. "All right," he said finally, "I'll do it. But on one condition."

"Oh, really?" Reyna raised her eyebrows at him. "And what might that be?"

"You have to call me Leo." He grinned cockily. "So do we have a deal?"

Then Reyna smiled—really _smiled_—for the first time. Leo couldn't believe how different she looked. Suddenly, she didn't look like a scary, tired, betrayed, overworked praetor. She looked . . . oh gods. She looked kind of beautiful. "I think I could stand that . . . Leo."

Leo shoved all thoughts of "beautiful" out of his head. He was _not_ going to think that about a Roman. He was _not_ going to think that about someone who had almost been Jason's girlfriend. He was _not_ going to think that about a praetor. He was _not_ going to think that about yet _another_ girl who was totally out of Leo's league. And he was _especially_ not going to think that about someone who fit into all _four _of those criteria.

Instead, he just smirked. "Fantastic. I'm glad we understand each other . . . Reyna." Unconsciously, he rolled the "r", turning her name into _reina_, the Spanish word for queen. Realizing what he had done, his face darkened a shade or two. Oh gods, please don't let her realize what he had said . . .

Then Reyna looked at him, her dark eyes unreadable, and didn't answer. Leo wondered what to say next, how best to change the subject, but before he could answer, a rock fell from the ceiling and crashed onto Leo's back. It was light enough to bounce off immediately, but heavy enough that Leo couldn't help himself. He cried out in agony.

"What in Pluto's name was _that_ for, Gaea?" To Leo's surprise, _Reyna_ was the one who yelled into the darkness instead of him. He was grateful, though. The yellow and black splotches obscuring his vision also seemed to be impairing his brain. He couldn't quite remember how to string together a full sentence.

_HOW DID YOU TELL HER?_ Gaea's voice boomed, angrier than Leo had ever heard her. _HOW DID ANNABETH KNOW HOW TO USE YOUR MACHINES?_

Another rock landed between Leo's shoulder blades. He arched his back so that it would roll off, but he couldn't shrug off the pain that easily. "What . . . talking about . . . ?" he managed.

Gaea seemed to force herself under control. The next three rocks that rained onto Leo's back were practically pebbles. That didn't mean they didn't hurt like Styx, though. _The surprise attack from yesterday that you just _happened_ to mention to your comrades on the _Argo II_?_ She spoke quietly, but that didn't make her voice any less terrifying. In fact, it made it scarier. _They were _prepared_ for it—which, of course, I had expected. After all, even if you _hadn't_ warned them, your little dragon figurehead has radar. But what I do not understand is HOW THEY COULD HAVE USED YOUR MACHINES TO DEFEAT MY ARMY._More stones pummeled Leo farther into the ground. The pain was so bad that it almost didn't hurt any more. Almost.

_You weren't on that warship, _Gaea continued eventually, struggling to keep her voice at normal volume. _You didn't tap out the codes to your friends. But I have reports from members of my army who came to see me as soon as they found themselves back in Tartarus. And they tell me that your machines made the difference between victory and defeat for them. _Your _machines. Tell me, godspawn, how is that possible? _

Her face appeared in the ground in front of Leo. It was weird to see the usually calm goddess so angry. Weird—and just a little satisfying.

_Leo, 1. Mother Nature, 0._

"I told you, Queen Dirt Face," Leo said, doing his best to be as aggravating as possible. Screw the consequences. He was going to enjoy this victory. "Annabeth is smart. She must have figured them out on her own. After all, the scroll was Ancient Greek, not Martian. If I could translate it, I see no reason that Annabeth couldn't do the same, and faster than I did."

Gaea glared at him, which must have been hard to do with her eyes closed, but somehow she managed. _Perhaps_, she said grudgingly. Then all of a sudden, she _smiled._ Leo felt a chill travel down his spine (which contrasted weirdly with the rest of his aching back). If Gaea could be smiling after a defeat like the one Leo and his friends had just dealt, she had another card to play. And Leo _hated_ playing cards—if he didn't win.

_Of course_, she added, _it doesn't matter. Even if your friends can reach the altar in Athens, they will only fall there. They have no chance against my armies, which are already stationed aboveground. A force the size of mine would have to be matched by an equal amount of gods and their children. _She paused for effect and then laughed, just so that she could match up to every evil-villain-stereotype in existence. _But now that Rome's only trustworthy praetor is missing in action, the legion has decided that Octavian is their closest thing to a leader. After all, he has always had Rome's best interests at heart. And for his first order of business, he has announced that he will lead the cohorts against Camp Half-Blood in three days._ She cackled again. _It is only fair—righteous justice, really. As Octavian puts it, the Greeks must have captured and killed Reyna to try to weaken the legion. All Roman demigods _must_ march on Camp Half-Blood _now_. It is the only way to show their loyalty towards their former praetor . . . who is now so _tragically_ deceased. _

Reyna let out a small gasp, so quiet that it was barely audible. That was the last straw for Leo. Ignoring the screaming pain in his back, he struggled to his feet. Despite his blinding anger, he remembered to reach inside his tool belt and press the button of his device for a third time. "You waited until Reyna was _alone_ to take her, didn't you?" he asked, starting to shake in his fury. "You wanted Octavian to think _we Greeks_ had done this! Being possessed by an _eidolon_ wasn't enough, huh? You had to make sure that every Roman hated every Greek with every ounce of their being! You had to make sure they wouldn't hesitate to kill every one of my friends! You had to make sure they felt no remorse as they killed countless demigods! And . . . oh my gods . . . "

_Yes, Leo Valdez, _Gaea smiled. _You are correct on all counts. And your Greek friends won't have a chance to make Camp Jupiter listen to reason. They will have no choice but to retaliate in self-defense. By the time that battle is over, the blood of every demigod will soak the ground of your beloved home. Your prophecy friends will have no allies during their hopeless battle in Athens. Everyone you care about will die. And I will keep you and Reyna Concessi alive just long enough to witness the destruction firsthand . . . before I kill you two as well and rise in all my glory._

_Oh, it will be wonderful, _she continued._ But I wouldn't be _too_ upset. After all, when August 1__st__ is over, and I have won, Greeks and Romans will be together at last, won't they? _Forget his back. Leo felt like his entire _soul_ was being ripped to shreds as Gaea finished her triumph speech._ War doesn't discriminate, godspawn. Both Greeks _and_ Romans will die that day. Their blood will mix on the battlefield. And their souls will mingle in the Underworld._

As if her words weren't enough, Gaea then had to throw a boulder at his back, knocking him back onto his face and sending him into new spasms of pain. Leo only had time for two actions before he was too incoherent to think and Reyna rushed over to help him and Gaea's ugly face melted back into the ground.

One: He turned off the recorder he had built in his tool belt so that it wouldn't run out of memory. Gaea might offer up another chance to incriminate herself later.

Two: He swore to find a way to get Rome's praetor back up to the surface before those three days were over. He had made mistakes before, but he wasn't about to add another one to the list. Leo would make sure he sent Reyna into New York with the recorder in her possession, so that she would have proof of Camp Half-Blood's innocence when she returned to her legion. He trusted her to make Octavian see sense. If Leo could return Reyna to New York, she could stop the civil war, and then both camps could travel to Greece to help the rest of the Seven. With their help, Gaea would never taste victory. So Leo swore on the Styx to help Reyna escape. That way, he could gain back the upper hand and win this particular card game.

The stakes were too high. He couldn't just fold. He had to _win_, no matter what.

Even if the game killed him.

* * *

**"BEEEEP."**

**That was the tone. Now please leave your message. ;)**


	6. Part VI

**84 reviews! You guys rock! :DDD Congrats to fabulouslaughter, who was 75th! And thank you so so so much to the rest of you, too! :DDDDD**

**Anyway . . . eight days . . . That's close enough to a week . . . right? **

**Sorry about the slow update; I'm kind of making this up as I go along. . . . But I still hope to finish this before House of Hades comes out. (Although I'm kind of doubting that it'll happen. :P)**

**Also, you might have noticed that I changed the rating to T. I just kind of realized that getting whipped and tortured probably counts as T-rated material, and there may or may not be more cursing later on, so I decided this should be T, just in case. ;)**

**That's all! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: ****"Hello, dearest readers. I do not own PJO. I am not Rick Riordan. Not male. Don't have gray hair. Don't have a book published. I claim rights to nothing except the plot." *pause* "This message will be repeated for each chapter. Please leave a message after the tone."**

* * *

**Part VI**

Percy had thought that yesterday's victory would be exciting enough to ward off any lingering memories of Tartarus. But that had obviously been wishful thinking.

He had panicked at lunch today, somehow believing that his burger was attacking him. He had stabbed it with the closest butter knife before Annabeth had managed to calm him down. An hour later, he had been sitting on deck when a pigeon landed next to him. Instantly he had jumped to his feet and drawn his sword, sure that it was a Stymphalian menace. Once again, it had taken Annabeth to make him see sense.

Percy felt like an idiot—which, okay, was pretty normal for him, but this was different. It was irrational, like his stupid fear of water had been after his quest to Alaska. If there was one good thing about his trip to Tartarus, he had stopped being hydrophobic—the fact that there was hardly any water in Tartarus made him realize how much he loved it—but that had just been replaced with these crazy hallucinations.

Annabeth could bring him back to reality, but that was another part of the problem. _He_ was supposed to be taking care of _her_. _He_ was supposed to be the invincible boyfriend, strong enough to ward off armies of monsters and the terrors of darkness. How could he fulfill that requirement if he turned into a nutcase?

Everyone said he would get back to normal soon, but Percy knew they were just trying to be supportive. He could stop hallucinating tomorrow, or next week, or never. Nobody had any clue how to help him.

That was why when the first bird-monster attacked, Percy didn't think to sound the alarm. He figured it was just another figment of his imagination.

Then it clawed his shoulder, and Percy felt the blood running down his arm. It wasn't a hallucination after all.

Once again, Percy felt like an idiot. He jumped backwards to put some distance between them, grabbed his pen out of his pocket, and uncapped it. The weight of the sword felt comfortable in his hand. He had been fighting monsters for years. It was one of the few things he was _good_ at. He could take this flying bird-thing easily.

So he did. The next time it swooped towards him, Percy reached up and sliced it in half. Yellow dust rained down on his head, and for a moment, Percy allowed himself to relax. Then the rest of the flock flew in.

There was no time to get his friends or call for help. Everyone else was downstairs, eating dinner, the ship was on autopilot, and Percy needed every ounce of breath he had to dodge attacks and swipe back. He fought alone, shrugging off cuts and coughing up feathers. As he twisted and turned, other monsters seemed to appear in the mix—a hydra here, a Laistrygonian there—but somehow, Percy could tell that they weren't real. Maybe their skin didn't reflect the setting sun like the birds' feathers did. Maybe their eyes didn't gleam quite right. Whatever it was, it distinguished them from the real enemies, and Percy didn't bother with them. He just slashed apart the birds.

In maybe five minutes, the flock was gone, and golden dust was drifting through the air. Only then did Percy realize what had just happened. _He had separated real monsters from hallucinations. He had realized what was imaginary. _Did that mean—was there hope for him after all? The thought was almost too good to be true.

Suddenly, the door from belowdecks banged open. Percy whirled around at the noise, and for a second, it looked like a Cyclops was barreling towards him. He hefted his sword in his hand, ready to strike—and then he realized how ridiculous he was being. There were no monsters _inside_ the ship! He squinted, concentrating on the vision. Slowly, the frizz of brown hair on the monster's head darkened and resolved into a stricter military cut. Its skin lightened. The single red eye split into two dark brown ones.

"Frank!" Percy said in relief, quickly sheathing his sword. "What's up?"

The son of Mars skidded to a stop in front of him. "Why are you covered in feath—? Never mind. Come with me. Your camp friends are Iris-messaging us inside—they say it's urgent."

* * *

"Leo! Leo, wake up."

The son of Hephaestus blinked up at her with bloodshot eyes. "Oh, hey . . . Reyna . . . " he said groggily. "What're you doing?"

"You look _awful_, Leo," she said, getting straight to the point. "Your skin is pale, you're sweating, and you were shivering in your sleep. How do you feel?"

"I'm"—his whole body shook, and Leo gasped when his back hit a rock—"fine."

Reyna shook her head. "Why do I not believe you?"

He grinned weakly. "You know . . . I _look_ _fine_, Praetor. . . . You're just . . . in denial. It happens . . . to the best of us. You'll come around . . . eventually."

"What? I don't even know what you mean by that. . . ." Reyna said, trying not to turn red. "Look, Valdez, you can't even string a full sentence together. You're obviously delirious. I'm worried that the cuts on your back are infected or something."

"Worried . . . about _me_ . . . ?" Leo muttered. "How . . . sweet. . . ."

"Oh my _gods_," she said, hoping the darkness hid her blush. "Since you're delirious, I'll forgive you this once. But next time, Gaea won't be the only one trying to kill you."

"Fair . . . enough . . . _reina_," he said.

"Don't call me that," she snapped.

"What?" he asked innocently. "That's your name . . . isn't it?"

Reyna had to refrain from smacking him. "You are an idiot."

He grinned. "Why . . . thank you . . . Praet—" Before he could finish, he spasmed again. This time, his head cracked against a stone, and he winced.

All thoughts of being angry with the repair boy flew out of Reyna's brain. She lifted his head and unwrapped his bandages, checking to see if he'd done any more damage. Unfortunately, he had. Most of the blood matting his hair had clotted by the time Reyna had dressed his wound, but now a wet dark substance was coating the remains of her cloak. Some of it got on her fingers, warm and sticky, and Reyna frowned. Fresh blood. Even with her very limited medical knowledge, she was sure that could _not_ be a good sign for head wounds.

Not knowing what else to do, Reyna wrapped up Leo's head again, worrying about how clammy his skin felt. She had used her cloak for bandages because it was the cleanest thing in Tartarus, but even it had been coated in its fair share of dirt and grime. It was entirely possible that bacteria had invaded Leo's body. Maybe if she could just wash out his injuries, he would get better, but there was no water in Tartarus . . . was there?

Reyna turned to the two _empousae_ standing guard on either side of the clearing. "We need to get to the closest water source," she said bluntly.

The closest vampire-monster bared her fangs. "Why?"

"Leo's back is infected. I have to clean his injuries with fresh water."

"So?" the other _empousa_ laughed. "He is a prisoner. His health is of no concern to us."

"No concern, other than the fact that you need him alive to be sacrificed on August 1st," Reyna countered. "You can't kill a demigod on an altar if he's already dead. And if I don't get him to water, Leo _is_ going to die."

The nearest monster hesitated. "We must ask the mistress—" she began.

"No time," Reyna interrupted. "I need a quick decision to be made here, vampires. I have to wash out his back as soon as possible. The longer I wait, the worse he'll get." As if to prove her story, Leo shivered violently and let out a rasping cough. Reyna waited until he calmed again before continuing. "See what I mean? If you don't lead us there _now_, Leo will die, and you will have no male demigod to sacrifice in Athens. And _then_ what will your mistress think?"

They hesitated. Leo coughed some more. "The clock is ticking, vampires," Reyna said, trying not to sound desperate. "We need to get going _now_."

The farther _empousa_ fixed her with a deadly red glare. "We will lead you to the hot spring," she said slowly, "but if you try to escape, we will find you even faster than before. And this time," she added with a fang-filled grin, "the son of Hephaestus will not be able to volunteer to be punished in your stead. Do you understand?"

The thought of escape hadn't even crossed Reyna's mind. They couldn't escape if Leo was too weak to stand on his own. "I understand," she said immediately.

"Good," the nearest monster said. "Then we will fetch a Cyclops to carry this godspawn."

And they did. Within minutes, Leo's chain was clasped to the Cyclops's arm, and he was dangling limply six feet off the ground. Reyna's chain was attached to two different chains that clamped onto both of the _empousae's_ legs. The first _empousa_ gave Reyna one last warning about trying to run off—like she could even try without dragging the two vampires along with her—and they set off.

* * *

When Percy walked into the dining room, Annabeth watched as the expressions on the camp counselors' faces lightened by ten notches.

She knew exactly how they felt.

Percy did a double take. "Gods . . ." he said. "You're _all here_!"

"Forget that, Percy," Grover bleated. "_You're there_!"

Clarisse glared at him. "All this time, and not a single IM. You're inconsiderate as Styx, Jackson."

Percy raised his eyebrows. "What? Do my ears mislead me? Was Clarisse la Rue _worried_ about me?"

"We were all concerned at least a _little_ bit," Travis put in, "but Clarisse was the first to go search for you."

"Yeah, if storming through the woods yelling, 'Jackson, stop scaring your girlfriend and get your sorry insert-some-colorful-language-here back to camp' counts as searching," Connor snickered.

Now Clarisse directed her glare towards the Stolls. "As soon as this meeting's over, I'm going to haul you two outside and kick _your_ sorry a—"

"No you won't," Katie interrupted quietly.

Clarisse stared at her, eyes blazing. "Gardner, you're nice and all, and I know you have a thing for Travis, but you can't stop me when they just—"

"It's not _that_," Katie insisted, blushing furiously. "Gods, that's not even _true_. It's just . . . we . . . you know . . . need all our fighters to be in good condition right now."

"Yeah," Travis said, grinning and leaning towards her, "but you know you have a thing for me too, Katie."

"_Absolutely n_—"

"Wait!" Percy said, holding a hand up and furrowing his eyebrows. "Why do you need all your fighters to be in good condition?"

The mood sobered again. Seeing Percy alive and well had relieved the counselors (plus Grover, who was there as a Lord of the Wild) temporarily, but his question brought the situation back into focus.

Clarisse was the first to answer. "It's those _idiotic_ Romans," she spit out.

Instantly, Katie looked at Frank and Hazel. "She doesn't mean _you_," she clarified kindly.

"No," Clarisse growled, "I mean that _stupid_ kid with that _stupid_ straw hair and those _stupid_ stuffed animals."

"Octavian?" Annabeth asked in surprise. They had refrained from discussing the reason for the IM until everyone (read: Percy) was in the room. She was just as confused as everyone else. "What's he up to now?"

"What's he up to?" Clarisse raged, chucking a pencil across the room. "I'll tell you what he's up to. The damn Roman is leading his legion to march on our camp in _two flipping days_!"

"_His_ legion?" Hazel asked, frowning. The same thought was on Annabeth's mind—and on everyone else's in the room, judging from their expressions. "But . . . isn't Reyna still in charge?"

"Not anymore, she's not," Clarisse proclaimed. "According to that psychopath, she's missing, presumed dead. And the idiot would have the Romans believe that _we_ killed her! Can you believe that?"

"Considering that it's Octavian," Frank muttered, "yeah. I can believe it."

"But I don't understand," Hazel said slowly. "Reyna is _missing_?"

A cold hand closed around Annabeth's heart. "She's not really missing," she said slowly. "I have a feeling I know _exactly_ where she is."

Everyone in the room looked at Annabeth, their eyes wide. "You're not saying . . ." Jason said finally.

"You know _exactly_ what she's saying, Jason," Nico said grimly. "We warned _Camp Half-Blood_ about the fact that Gaea wanted a girl sacrifice. But nobody told the legion."

"In other words," Annabeth said, "Gaea killed two birds with one stone. She made sure the Romans would attack Camp Half-Blood _and_ got her sacrifice. She kidnapped Reyna and brought her into Tartarus as well."

"Styx," Piper said softly. "Now Leo's _really_ done for."

Jake, who was filling in the head counselor spot in Leo's absence, shook his head. "If this Reyna doesn't find a way back to the surface in two days . . ." he started.

Clarisse finished. "We _all_ are."

* * *

The whole journey took maybe half an hour, but with Leo shaking and moaning the entire time, it felt much longer. Reyna fretted helplessly. He had been so selfless, lying to protect her from getting whipped like that. . . . If he died from those wounds, Reyna wasn't sure she would ever forgive herself.

Lost in her thoughts, Reyna didn't notice when the monsters stopped, and she nearly crashed into the monster in front of her before she managed to halt. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. If she had even brushed it, the _empousa_ might have thought she was attacking her and killed her as a reflex.

"We are here," the _empousa_ announced.

Reyna bit her tongue to hold back a stupid retort like "Really? I thought we were stopping to pick daisies". That could get her killed as well. "All right," she said instead. "Um, can the Cyclops bring Leo over to the spring and lay him beside it? I can take over from there."

"No," one of the _empousae_ said sharply. "I will clean his back."

"Really?" Reyna snapped. "Do _you_ have experience in demigod field medicine? Have _you_ ever tried to heal a demigod before? Would _you_ have any _idea_ what you were doing?"

It frowned slowly. "Very well, Reyna Concessi. You may clean the son of Hephaestus yourself. But we will be watching you carefully."

"As long as you give us enough distance," Reyna cautioned. "He'll need room to breathe."  
Reluctantly, the _empousa_ complied. The Cyclops set Leo down at the edge of the spring—relatively gently, thank gods—and Reyna knelt next to him.

As soon as she started unraveling his bandages, Leo opened his eyes. When he registered who she was, his mouth broke into a grin. "Hello, Praetor," he said. "Nice to see you again."

Reyna didn't comment. "They brought us to a hot spring, Leo," she said instead. "I'm going to clear out your injuries to try and stop the infection."

She finished taking off his head wrap and reached over the water to rinse it. Before she could touch the spring, Leo grabbed her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong for such a skinny guy—especially a sick, malnourished skinny guy. "Wait, _reina_."

"Wait?" she asked incredulously. "Wait to heal you? Are you kidding?"

"Drink the water first," he explained. "Before you get my blood in it."

"What? Why?"  
"Oh, come on, Rey," he said. Reyna flinched at the nickname but didn't say anything. "They're not exactly spoiling us down here. They only give us water every other day, and they _feed_ us every _three_ days. Don't tell me you aren't thirsty and hungry 24/7. When you get a chance to drink a reasonable amount of water for once, you have to take it."

Reyna couldn't argue with that. "Fine," she said. She dipped her hands in the water—gods, it was hot—and brought some to her lips. She would have preferred an ice-cold glass, condensation forming on the outside, but in Tartarus, she would take what she could get. And she _was_ parched. Before she knew it, she had gulped down several mouthfuls. The liquid burned her tongue, but she didn't care. For the first time in days, her throat wasn't dry and scratchy. She wasn't hoarse with thirst. It was a miracle of godly proportions.

"All right, Leo, you next," she said when she was done.

"Huh?"

"You said it yourself," she said. "When you get a chance to drink a reasonable amount of water for once, you have to take it. Dip your hands in the water and get some."

Leo smiled weakly. "What, you can't do it for me?" But he did as she said, sighing in satisfaction when he was done. "Thank gods for hot springs," he muttered.

As if the water had made Reyna's brain start functioning again, something clicked into place. "You're not shivering anymore," she told him, "and you're speaking in complete sentences."

"What—?" Realization dawned in his eyes. "Oh, _Styx_. The water made me forget." Immediately, he started shaking again.

Reyna stared at him. "Are you telling me you have been pl—?"

Leo screamed something unintelligible, cutting her off. "Keep it _down_, Reyna!" he whispered when he stopped. "I wasn't playing you. I just couldn't explain with all those guards around. I had to think of a way to get us alone so I could talk to you. This was what I came up with."

Reyna's brain short-circuited. She said the first thing that popped into her head. "Do you mean to say that your stupid—denial—looking fine—Gods, Leo, I thought you were just delirious, but now that I know, I am going to _kill_ . . ."

"I'm sorry!" he protested. "I was trying to make it realistic! I had to make you buy it, so you could convince the _empousae_ to bring us out here."

Reyna shook her head and turned away from him, dunking his head rag in the hot spring. And to think she had been _concerned_ for him. . . .

Without meaning to, she took in a ragged breath to try to calm herself down. Leo heard it. "Reyna . . ." he said. She didn't answer. To her surprise, she felt his hand touch her elbow. She stiffened in shock. "_Reina_, I'm sorry. I didn't want to scare you. There was just no way to tell you."

With the pretext of looking at the bandage to make sure it was rinsed properly, she swiped a hand across her eyes before turning back to the son of Hephaestus. "Start shaking again," she told him briskly. "You don't look sick at all."

He grinned at her and shivered convincingly. She rolled him onto his stomach and started rinsing out his hair. Then she hesitated. "Wait," she said. "If this was all an act . . . How the Styx did you get fake blood?"

He laughed shakily. "Funny thing," he said. "The rocks that I ran into as I was shaking weren't part of the plan."

"Oh gods, Leo," she sighed, gently scrubbing at the dark substance matting his hair to his skull. "What could be so important that you would hurt yourself just to get out here and talk about it?"

"Escape," Leo said simply. "We can do it."

Reyna's hand accidentally banged against his head in surprise, making Leo wince. "Sorry!" she whispered. "You just . . . _Escape_? Do you have a _plan_?"

"'Course I do," he said, grinning slightly. "I'm a genius."

Reyna didn't even bother with a retort. "So what is it?" she hissed, wrapping his head up again. "Spill, Valdez, or I swear to all the gods. . . ."

"Calm down, Rey, I'm getting to that," Leo muttered. Reyna ignored the nickname again. She could only clean Leo's wounds for so long before the _empousae_ got suspicious. They had to speak as quickly as possible. "Anyway, like I was saying, I have a plan," he continued. Reyna turned him over and started unraveling the bandages around his torso, listening carefully. "I used to keep any spare parts for the _Argo II_ in Buford—my flying table—long story—but this one time he ran off with one and almost caused the engine room to explode—longer story—so from then on I kept the bigger pieces in a normal cabinet. But that's not really important. What matters is that I kept the smaller parts in my tool belt."

Reyna paused in confusion. Sure, the pockets on that belt were large, but there was no way he could keep complete _parts_ in there. . . . "I don't—"

"Oh, I forgot you didn't know about that," Leo said, shivering as he spoke. "To make another long story short, this tool belt is magical. It can store any mechanical parts or devices I shove in there and also generate simple items of its own—anything that can be found in your basic machine shop, plus breath mints, for some reason."

"Oh . . . kay . . . " she said slowly, doing her best to absorb the gist of Leo's shortened long stories. "Flying ship's parts stored in a magic tool belt, not in a flying table. Got it. What does that have to do with escape?"

Leo grinned. "You know that monsters were getting out of Tartarus because the Doors of Death were open, right?"

Reyna raised her eyebrows. "Were?"

"Yeah," Leo said casually. "I closed them a couple days ago, along with Nico. Nico stayed topside. I went down here. How do you think I ended up being Gaea's most precious prisoner?"

Reyna was speechless. Romans valued selflessness and bravery, but closing the Doors of Death while knowing that you would be stuck in Tartarus—possibly forever—was taking courage to a new level. Gods, Reyna would do _anything_ for her legion, and even _she_ wasn't sure if she would have the strength to go through with such a dangerous mission. This new revelation made Reyna view the unassuming repair boy in a completely different light. And then she finished untangling his bandages and came face-to-face with another worrisome Leo-related revelation.

"Iūpiter nōs audiūvat," Reyna muttered.

Leo's head cocked to the side "What? Am I totally lost here, or did you just speak Latin? I don't know if you remember this, but I'm _Greek_, Reyna."

Reyna shook her head. "Sorry, Leo . . . It's just . . . your _back_ . . ."

"What? What's wrong with it?" Leo twisted around to try to look at it—actually, he _tried_ to twist around. Instead, he gasped and winced in pain, and Reyna could tell it wasn't an act this time.

Reyna sighed and started rinsing his bandages in the spring. "Your cuts are still bleeding, Leo! Sure, it's slowed down a lot, but _still_. They should have clotted by now."

Leo laughed weakly, trying to play off how much his back obviously hurt. "Well, you know how it is, _reina_. One moment you're getting whipped, and the next thing you know, an angry earth goddess decides that isn't a good enough punishment and chucks a rock at your back too. What else is new?"

Reyna pursed her lips. "Look, Leo, I don't want your back to get infected. Otherwise, your shivering might just become real. So I'm going to have to rinse off your cuts. But this is a hot spring we're next to. The water is so scalding that it might burn you, and I don't want to make your injuries even _worse_. . . ."

Leo chuckled again, a little stronger this time. "Trust me, Rey. I don't burn easily—at _all_, actually. Don't worry about it."

Too confused to comment, Reyna just dipped her hands into the water and poured it over Leo's back. He hissed accidentally.

"I warned you about burns," she muttered.

"Not that," he whispered, shoulders tense. "Just . . . stinging . . . ouch. . . . That's all. . . ."

Reyna shook her head and used the clean bandages to try to scrub off some of the crusted blood on Leo's back. But when his back arched and he cried out before he could help himself, Reyna decided to leave the dried bits be. They weren't really scabs, but they were _connected_ to scabs, and she _really_ didn't want to tear those off his back. He would start bleeding badly all over again, which would be nothing less than a disaster.

Instead, Reyna just poured water over Leo's back again, hoping it would be enough to clean out his injuries. The son of Hephaestus shook suddenly.

"Leo, are you okay?" she asked, eyebrows furrowing and hands hovering over his back.

"Fine, _reina_," Leo grinned. "Did you forget that I'm supposed to be playacting intense pain for our guards over there?"

Reyna refused to admit that when Leo had cried out, all thoughts of pretend had rushed out of her head, and she had only felt worried. All she said was, "Did _you_ forget the reason that you started playacting in the _first_ place? What's the escape plan, Valdez?"

Leo spasmed. Reyna hoped it was just another act. "Right," he said. "Uh . . . where was I, again?"

"You had just told me that you risked your life to close the Doors of Death," Reyna supplied.

It was hard to tell in the dim light shed by one of the _empousae_'s torches, but Reyna thought Leo might have reddened then. "Right," he repeated. "Well, I had been about to say that everyone thinks that the Doors of Death are the only exit out of Tartarus. But I know for a fact that there's another _entrance_."

Slowly, Reyna started to understand Leo's plan. "The pit in the Underworld . . ."

". . . that leads straight to Tartarus," Leo finished, nodding slightly. "Exactly. And just think about it. Where there is an entrance, so must there also be an exit—as long as one is sufficiently brilliant to reach said exit."

Reyna rolled her eyes, trying to contain her happiness. "And I suppose you're about to tell me that you are sufficiently brilliant enough for that particular task."

"Actually," Leo said, "I was going to say that if we work together, our _combined_ brilliances should be enough for that particular task." He grinned. "But I like the way you think, Praetor."

Reyna glared at him, but she couldn't hold the expression for long. It quickly cracked into a smile. "We're going to get out. . . ." she breathed. "_We're going to get out. . . ._" Suddenly, her excitement—and her expression—froze. Her hands stopped wrapping Leo's bandages.

Leo seemed to feel the tension. "What is it, Rey? Didn't I just tell you the most fantastic news you've ever heard?"

She forced her hands to relax. "Yeah," she managed. "It's just . . . Well, you said you had _parts_ in your tool belt."

"So?"

"_Parts_, Leo," she said. "Not a fully-formed contraption."

This time, she felt him hesitate before he repeated "So?" again.

"So," she said, feeling the edges of panic, "Octavian wants to destroy Camp Half-Blood in three days—_two_ now, actually. We have no time."

"Don't _worry_. I started building the machine the other day—you know, that time I forced my guard to lead me to a bathroom. I slipped out of her view and worked on it until she called me back. Made a ton of progress." Leo sounded soothing . . . but was it just Reyna, or was there a note of anxiety in his voice as well?

"But . . ." Reyna fought to stay calm. "_Two days_, Leo. Can we finish the whatever-it-is, _and_ get out of these chains and distract our guards, _and_ make our way past Gaea's massive army, _and_ travel through Tartarus until we find the hole that leads to the Underworld, _and_ make it back to the surface, all in _two days_?"

Her question was met with a silence that dragged through the darkness. Reyna's hands shook as she wrapped Leo's back in bandages again. So that was it, then? The deadline was too impossible? It couldn't be done?

But he had gotten her hopes up. . . . He had promised that they could escape. . . .

"Yes." The word was whispered to keep it out of the monsters' earshot, but it was enough to cut through Reyna's despair. "Just you watch, Reyna. I'll finish building the machine by tomorrow. I'll get you out of here. This escape plan _will_ work. It _has_ to. We have to stop Octavian from leading your camp into civil war. We have to save my friends and yours. We have to save the _entire world_. And if we escape, we _can_ do all that. You're praetor, after all. Your supposed death was the reason your legion got all worked up and set such a crazy deadline in the first place. If you show up alive and well, you can stop them from destroying my camp. In fact, you can get Romans and Greeks to _work together_."

Reyna hesitated. "Are you sure about that? I mean . . . even if we _do_ make it back to New York . . . Leo, Octavian is a persuasive speaker, and if I have to beat him with an argument . . . I don't know if I could win."

A grin stretched slowly across Leo's face. "Don't worry about that either, _reina_. You won't have to persuade Camp Jupiter with only _your_ words. _I_ have some for you too."

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"I—" Suddenly, Leo started shivering. His head rolled to the side, and his eyelids fluttered.

In the next second, a huge shadow loomed over the pair. Reyna looked up and found herself staring straight into a single eye. She looked back down and realized that she had finished tying the final knot. _Styx_. They were out of time.

The Cyclops picked him up and started walking away. Reyna watched as Leo cracked one eye open and looked at her. _I'll explain later,_ he mouthed. _We can do this!_

Then Reyna felt four hands haul her roughly to her feet. The two _empousae_ flanked either side of her. "Will the prisoner live?" one hissed.

Reyna couldn't help but smile. "Oh, _yes_," she answered. "In a few days, I think Leo Valdez will be _just _fine." _And so will I._

* * *

**"BEEEEP."**

**That was the tone. Now please leave a message. ;)**


	7. Part VII

**First of all, I am SO sorry. I know it's been over two weeks since I updated, and I know that House of Hades came out yesterday, so most of you have probably finished it already and are all set to complain about how this story probably conflicts with the canon timeline now...**

**I'M SORRY. I could give you a long excuse, but you probably don't care, and anyway I have more to say in this author's note, so all I'll say is I had the triple threat problem: school, extracurricular activities, and a bit of writer's block. In addition, about half of this chapter didn't save in Doc Manager for some reason, so I lost it and had to retype it, so this isn't really as long as I had wanted originally ****OR my best work, even though you TOTALLY deserve my best after my long hiatus... It's also unedited because I wanted to get it out as soon as possible, so typos are a huge possibility. I'll go back and fix them soon... Once again, I'M SORRY.**

**However, I am NOT abandoning this story, despite its probable irrelevance now. I WILL KEEP WRITING IT, and if you want to keep reading and reviewing it, that would be _lovely_. :) It will be finished as soon as humanly possible.**

**Secondly, I HAVE NOT FINISHED HOUSE OF HADES. I HAVE NOT EVEN GOTTEN IT YET. SO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NO SPOILERS IN YOUR REVIEWS OR PMs, OR... OR... I MIGHT CRY AND THEN SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration—I don't cry that often, and I've never spontaneously combusted before—but you get the point. NO SPOILERS **_**AT ****ALL**_**(even tiny ones), PRETTY PLEASE WITH AMBROSIA ON TOP.**

**Um, also I apologize for the heavy use of caps lock in this author's note... I just wanted to make sure everybody saw that... **

**Anyway, incredibly long author's note aside, thank you so much for the reviews! I can't believe we're almost at 100 already!**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HoO. In case you haven't gotten that by now. :)**

* * *

**Part VII**

* * *

"Please," Leo begged, straining against his chain to get as close to the _empousa_ as he could. "I can walk now, I swear. Please let me go back there and use the bathroom again."

"He'll make this whole clearing stink if you don't," Reyna warned. "Please spare us _all_ that."

"It's not like _you're_ much better, Praetor," Leo protested, sparing her a glare. "Don't pretend that you don't need to go too."

Reyna flushed dark red. She didn't answer, but that was all the confirmation Leo seemed to need. "See?" he said, turning back to their guard. "Maybe you should let _both_ of us go."

The _empousa_ Leo was appealing to didn't budge, but the one across the clearing did. "See sense, Peiliona," she said. "Worst-case scenario, they try to escape and Elinore gets to whip one or both of them again." Reyna saw Leo wince before he could help himself. She didn't blame him. Memories of her own punishments were flashing through her head at the moment. "Best-case scenario, nothing happens. I'll even come with you."

Peiliona hesitated. "I . . ."

"Perfect." The second _empousa_ came over and started undoing Leo's lock. "Don't make me regret this, godspawn," she hissed threateningly, using the chain to yank him to his feet. "Even think about escaping, and you'll _beg_ for another whipping as lenient as the last one."

Leo gulped. "Wouldn't dream of it. Promise."

He saw Peiliona drag Reyna upwards as well. The praetor did a convincing job of stumbling to get her balance. "Sorry, sorry," she gasped when Peiliona growled at her. "I'm just . . . hungry. Weak. Sorry."

Leo could feel the _empousa_ behind him loosen her grip on the chain, and why wouldn't she? If he and Reyna were barely strong enough to _stand_, how would they _run_? Leo suppressed a smile. These idiots didn't know what they were in for.

* * *

Reyna had Leo's arm around her shoulders for the entire journey, since he was feigning weakness to lull the _empousae_ into relaxing their guard. They fake-stumbled along together, one of them occasionally tripping to keep up the act. In reality, Reyna was used to hunger—after all, she _had_ spent over two months as a prisoner on a pirate ship, and they hadn't exactly been generous with their distribution of rations—and Leo seemed fine as well, even though she couldn't imagine where he got _his_ strength from. But the frailer they looked, the greater their advantage, so Reyna let Leo continue to collapse onto her . . . even though the weight of his body on her back was almost enough to make her blush. Almost.

"We're here, godspawn," Peiliona announced eventually. "Go do your business—in separate directions."

Reyna felt Leo freeze, but she had prepared for this announcement. "I . . . I'm sorry, Peiliona, but I don't think Leo can stand on his own. He'll need my help to get to the, er . . ." This time, she flushed red on purpose. "You know."

"Oh, go ahead," the second _empousa_ sighed, giving Reyna's chain a little shake. "There's nowhere to run anyway."

Reyna nodded as meekly as she could manage, then adjusted Leo's arm and started walking forward. Wincing with every step, the son of Hephaestus limped along beside her. Part of Reyna wondered if some of that wincing wasn't really fake, but she didn't have time to interrogate Leo about his health. He had claimed that he was fine, and she had no choice but to believe him. After all, they were down to thirty-six hours before Octavian would begin the march on Camp Half-Blood. They couldn't waste any more time. They had to start escaping _now_.

As soon as they were out of sight behind a group of stalagmites, Reyna ducked out from under Leo's arm. "Okay," she said as she moved, hoping to hide her awkwardness, "what do we do now?"

Leo relaxed his arm, looking at it with almost . . . disappointment? "Now," he said, "you go do your business over there, and I'll do mine over here."

Reyna's entire face burned red. "Oh my _gods_," she said. "Leo, what are you—?"

"Come on, Rey," Leo said, grinning. "Those empousae bought our story for a reason. Look me in the eye and tell me it doesn't have an ounce of truth."

She couldn't. "That's what I thought. Don't worry, Reyna," he added, still grinning idiotically. "It's a perfectly normal function of the human body."

Reyna would have smacked him, but she still doubted that his back was fully healed. "Fine," she growled under her breath, "but you'd better stay _way_ over here."

His smile widened. "Don't worry, Reyna," he repeated. "I will look forward to once again being blessed with your presence."

Reyna decided it was best not to comment. She simply rolled her eyes and hurried off.

* * *

She found Leo in the exact same position she had left him in, leaning sideways against a stalagmite and grinning in her direction. "Stop that," she hissed. "You look like an idiot."

"I know," he said, still smiling broadly.

She gave him a withering glare, wasting precious seconds of their time until he _finally_ got the hint and stopped. "Gods, Valdez . . ." she muttered under her breath. "Sometimes, I just do _not_ understand what goes through your head."

Unfortunately, Leo heard her. "Neither do I, Praetor," he answered with a smirk.

Not comforting, considering he had formed their entire escape plan.

Reyna drove the thought out of her mind. "Whatever," she said. "Now how do you plan to get these chains off? Does your tool belt have bolt cutters?"

Leo shrugged slightly. "Doesn't matter if it does," he informed her. "They're too forceful. The _empousae_ would feel the shaking when the chain was cut and instantly know something was up."

Reyna resisted the impulse to shake him. "Okay," she said instead. "Then what do _you_ suggest we do?"

Surprisingly, Leo seemed to hesitate at her words. "Well . . ."

"Come on, Leo," she said, trying not to sound too impatient. She didn't think it worked. "We don't have much time. I don't care if your method of removing chains is illegal or crazy or whatever. Just _do it_."

Leo took a deep breath. "Okay," he said finally. "Just . . . be prepared."

And with that, he lit his hand on fire.

At the last possible moment, Reyna remembered not to cry out in surprise. Instead, she choked on air.

"Holy _Bellona_!" she whispered as soon as she found her breath again. "What the Styx—?"

Leo kept his eyes on her chain as he narrowed the flames on his hand into one, bright blue, compact flare. Carefully, he trained the fire as close to her ankle as he could without burning her skin off. As shocked as she was, Reyna appreciated the foresight. She did _not_ want to be lugging around a length of chain as she ran off.

Finally, the chain link he was holding up melted, and he extinguished the flame and caught the rest of the chain in one smooth motion, keeping it from clattering to the ground. With that movement, Reyna found her voice again. "Explain," she managed to say. "Do . . . do _other _children of Hephaestus do that? Control fire?"

Slowly, Leo shook his head, eyes still trained downwards. "Not in about three hundred and fifty years," he said carefully. "Since one of us—you know, fire users—started the Great Fire of London." The last part came out in a rush.

When Reyna didn't answer immediately, Leo sneaked a glance upwards to gauge her expression. Seeing how nervous he looked, Reyna managed a reassuring smile. His eyes widened, and he quickly looked down again. "So you're not mad?" he asked, seemingly to Reyna's shoes.

"Surprised, yes," she admitted. "Mad, no. How could I be? You're using your fire to help us escape."

As if in confirmation of her words, Leo's chain snapped. He caught the loose end and set it gently on the ground. Then he straightened and grinned at her with giddy relief. "You're right," he said. "Now I suggest we go do just that."

Reyna nodded and followed Leo as he turned and hurried off at a crouch-run, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. It wasn't hard. After all, it was _Tartarus_ they were rushing through.

Reyna had no idea where they were going, but Leo didn't hesitate along their twisting path. Eventually, they came to a giant stalagmite with a length of nylon rope wrapped around it. Leo deftly untied knots and unwound the rope until he had lowered his contraption to the ground.

Then Leo turned to check Reyna's reaction. He seemed pleased by the fact that her mouth was hanging open. "You like it?" he asked cockily.

"Gods of Olympus," was all Reyna could think to say. "How are we going to carry that thing through Tartarus?"

"Do not doubt my abilities, Praetor," Leo answered automatically, but he had already swiveled back towards his machine.

"I thought I was farther . . ." he muttered, so quietly Reyna was sure she hadn't been supposed to hear.

"What do you mean?" she asked, careful to turn her worried shout into an anxious hiss. "You don't have enough time?"

There was a long pause before he answered. "I never said that," he said, laying down and pushing himself underneath the machine as he spoke. His voice was slightly muffled by the metal in the way. "It'll be fine. Just . . . go patrol the area or something, okay? Make sure there aren't any monsters around. Come back in, I don't know, two hours or something. Hopefully I should be done by then."

Reyna decided not to comment on the discouraging "hopefully" he had thrown in there, or on the strange fact that a lowly repair boy was ordering around a praetor of Rome. Instead, she said, "Give me a screwdriver."

That was enough to make Leo look out from under the contraption, bonking his head in the process. He frowned up at her, rubbing his skull. "Why do you need one of those?"

"Oh, come on, Valdez," she said with a dazzling smile. "I know I'm good, but even _I_ can't defeat an entire army with my bare hands."

At that, Leo's mouth tilted up at the corners. "I wouldn't be so sure about that," he said, reaching into his belt and handing her the tool as he spoke. Then he poked his head back underneath the device. "After all, you're Reyna Concessi. You could probably defeat an entire army with _one_ bare hand."

His voice was hard to understand through the metal contraption, especially when he was speaking so quietly. He probably wasn't even talking to her—just muttering a measurement to himself or something. Reyna was most likely imagining that his next words sounded like a certain phrase she had never expected to be directed her way. In fact, she almost certainly was. Still . . .

_No,_ Reyna thought to herself. _Stop_.

She turned on her heel and strode off to inspect their perimeter, silently berating herself. She was being ridiculous. There was no _way_ Leo had said that to her. He _hadn't_.

Still, the words kept spinning through her head, whirling in a circle as pointless as a hamster wheel.

_"You're Reyna Concessi. You could probably defeat an entire army with _one_ bare hand._

_"It's one of the many things I like about you."_

* * *

"There has to be another way," Annabeth insisted, striding across the deck. Everyone else was gathered around her with equally worried expressions on their faces.

"There _has_ to be." Her eyes grew steely, and her voice hardened. "What about my mom's statue? I went through Styx to get that Parthenos, and then I fell into _hell_ to keep it safe. All because I was promised that it could bring our camps together. Gods, that hunk of metal has to be good for _something_. We can use it to make peace."

"Annabeth . . ." Hazel looked hesitant to bring up the problem looming over all their heads, but in the end, she kept going. "Maybe if we brought it back to your camp, it could settle the rivalry. But . . . gods, there's no time. It took us _four days_ to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. There's no way we can make a return trip in _one_."

Annabeth shook her head. "We can use it to make peace," she repeated. "We just have to figure out how." She dropped silent, pacing and thinking while the others watched her. Finally, a hint of an idea dropped into her brain.

She stopped pacing. "We can't _all_ make the journey in a day," she said slowly. "But shadow travel is instantaneous." She whirled around. "Nico, do you think you could—?" The words died on her lips as soon as she got a good look at the son of Hades. He still wasn't back at full strength—maybe he would never be—and he was so skinny that you could practically see his bones under his skin. There was no way he would survive a journey across the ocean, shadow-traveling with a massive statue _and_ a demigod passenger. Gods, she wasn't even sure he would survive the journey by _himself_.

He looked at her sadly and opened his mouth—to apologize for being weak, maybe, or worse, to lie and say he could do it—and Annabeth knew she had to cut him off before he spoke. "Forget I mentioned it," she said quickly. "It wouldn't work anyway. The Parthenos probably wouldn't convince the Romans that we want peace, since most Greeks thought they had stolen it in the first place. Gods, maybe they think Romans _had_ stolen it, and our retrieving it was stealing from _them_. It's Octavian. Who _knows_ what Styx he would come up with."

"You're right," Hazel answered, sneaking a glance at her brother. He looked secretly relieved to be let off the hook. "The only question is . . . what _are_ we going to do? How are we going to unite our homes?"

_Home_.

The word clicked in Annabeth's brain. She remembered New York, and her mother, staring sadly at a map of the subway station. _Sacked_, her mother had said. _Looted like a trophy and carted off—away from my beloved homeland. I lost so much. I swore I would never forgive. . . ._ At the time, Annabeth had thought her mom had been talking about her identity as Athena or Minerva, but now she wasn't sure. _A trophy, carted off from my beloved homeland_. . . . More of the conversation rushed into her head. _If I could find the route . . . the way home, then perhaps . . ._

Annabeth turned to Hazel and hugged her. "You're a genius!" she exclaimed.

Hazel looked confused. "But I didn't have an answer . . ."

"_The way home_," Annabeth explained. "My mom wants to get revenge on Rome because they looted the Parthenon and stole her statue, remember? They took away what made her Athena, the goddess of war, strategy, and wisdom. She's wanted revenge ever since. I bet her negative energy is egging on both sides. But if we returned the Parthenos to Athens . . ."

Jason's eyes widened. "And put it back inside the Parthenon . . ."

"My mom would be back in her home territory," Annabeth continued, nodding. "She would become Athena again. And then maybe the 'wisdom' part of her identity would kick back in, and she would realize just how bad it would be for civil war to break out between camps.

"She's an influential goddess," Annabeth finished. "Her input could be enough to make the other gods see sense—and in turn, to make Octavian see sense."

Frank's eyebrows furrowed. "Annabeth, I understand what you're saying. But what will the mortals think when a forty-foot-tall statue—one that's been missing for a thousand years—suddenly appears in the middle of the Parthenon?"

"It doesn't matter," Annabeth said firmly. "Athens is only half a day's flight away. We can't make it to Camp Half-Blood in time, but we can make it to Athens. This is our only chance."

Percy reached over and took Annabeth's hand. "Then we can do it," he promised, grinning at her reassuringly. "Set our course for Athens, Captain Chase."

* * *

"Leo!"

He stuck his head out of his machine and instantly saw Reyna sprinting towards him, braid streaming out behind her. If she was forgoing stealth to yell at him . . . Leo jumped out of the machine and quickly gathered up all of his tools, stuffing them into his belt's pockets with one hand and using the other to adjust a few screws on the contraption. By the time Reyna had reached him, Leo was all packed up and ready to move—which was fortunate because it seemed like they needed to do just that.

Reyna skidded to a halt, panting. "Gaea . . . sensed machine . . . army . . . coming . . ."

Leo nodded, taking in her disheveled state and slight limp as she spoke. "I thought you were going to kill some monsters with my screwdriver," he said lightly, trying not to panic. "Where is it?"

"I did," Reyna answered, still gasping for air. "I was scanning . . . perimeter . . . saw army . . . went around them . . . killed ten Cyclopes . . . threw screwdriver . . . hit crack in stalactite . . . brought it down . . . crushed thirty or so monsters . . . was a distraction long enough . . . to get a decent head start . . ."

Leo whistled softly. "Forty monsters with a screwdriver, Praetor?" he said. "Not bad." He hesitated. "I don't want to rain on your parade, but . . . just to give you a heads-up, you can't kill monsters down here. 'Killing' them actually transports them to another location in Tartarus, so . . ." He shrugged. "You might see them again soon enough."

"Okay," Reyna said, taking the news calmer than Leo had expected. "Doesn't really matter—I took them out of commission temporarily, which is good enough down here. But the real question is, how in Mars's name are we going to get this machine all the way to the entrance/exit to the Underworld?"

Leo bent down and picked up the nylon rope he had left on the ground, swinging it over his shoulder. "Easy," he said. "We drag it."

Reyna stared at him like she was waiting for him to break into a grin and shout, "LOL JK!" or something. When he didn't, she furrowed her eyebrows. "Okay, I know you've hit your head a couple times," she started, "so are you sure you don't have a minor concussion or somethi—?"

Leo snorted. "I'm not crazy, Praetor. This thing isn't as heavy as it looks, promise. Besides, we don't have _that_ far to go."

Reyna tilted her head. "How would you know that?"

Instead of answering, Leo jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Reyna followed the direction he was pointing in, and her mouth dropped open.

* * *

Random objects littered the floor of Tartarus, starting about a thousand feet away from where she was standing—and they weren't just the rocky debris that Reyna knew she had to watch out for with every step. These were everyday items, ranging from pacifiers to cowboy boots to cell phones to rubber duckies. And the farther away from Reyna they got, the more condensed the items became . . . almost like . . .

"It's a trail," she whispered in amazement. "A trail leading all the way to the entrance to the Underworld."

Leo nodded, offering her a half-smile—which was strange when compared to the wide, blinding grin that he usually wore, but Reyna was so excited by this concrete escape route that she didn't pay too much attention to that. "You know how the Styx is polluted with all sorts of unfulfilled dreams?" Leo asked. Reyna nodded. "Well, I'm guessing this stuff is kind of like that, in a way. People's possessions that found their way to the Underworld somehow—through sewers, earthquake fissures, whatever—and then were pulled into Tartarus from there. In general, the objects with the lightest masses traveled the farthest, and so are closest to us, but there are exceptions to that rule. I think that's because you have to calculate in other factors, like the object's density and material and surface area and—" Leo rambled on for a while before he noticed the blank look on Reyna's face. At least he had the grace to look sheepish about it. ". . .Of course, all that doesn't really matter. What matters is that we can use these objects to make our way out of here. We, uh, should probably get going."

Just then, a voice rumbled through Tartarus. _Godspawn! You have two minutes to surrender, or you will feel pain beyond your most petrifying nightmares. My army is closing in around you. Surrender, or you will _beg_ for August 1st to come faster, so that your torturous punishment can end and you can die._

Reyna had never heard a goddess sound so angry—or so _awake_. Quickly, she bent down and slung the other end of the rope over her shoulder. "Yes, Leo Valdez," she said, trying not to panic. "We should _definitely_ get going."

But to her surprise, the son of Hephaestus hesitated. "We'd never make it."

Reyna stared at him. "Are you saying we _should_ surrender?" she asked incredulously, her tone harsher than she'd intended. "Just . . . _give up_?"

"What?" Leo said. "No way! I just meant . . . I'll stay behind and distract them. You go on ahead."

Reyna was so shocked, she dropped her end of the rope. Three days ago, she wouldn't have hesitated to leave the Greek camp-bomber behind, especially if she _had _to in order to save her legion from making a terrible mistake that would cost them all of Western civilization, but now . . . Now that she had realized just how kind, funny, and selfless that Greek camp-bomber really was . . .

"No," she said, surprising herself as much as Leo. "You said yourself that this machine is lighter than it looks. We can do it."

"Reyna," Leo said calmly, "we can't."

At those words, Reyna couldn't take it any longer. He was too good. She couldn't let this happen. "_No_, Leo!" she said firmly. "I'm _not_ going to leave you down here! I'm _not_! That's _final_!"

"What?" Leo said again. "No! I didn't mean . . ." He paused for a split-second. "I'll catch up with you as soon as I can. This is _temporary_. Gods, Rey, I'm not _that_ heroic." He grinned at her. "I'll just come around from a different direction and use my fire to light up a false trail, creating a distraction and leading the monsters away from where you're actually going. Then I'll put up a wall of fire or something, make it look like we're trying to hold them off for as long as possible when really you're long gone. The monsters that are immune to fire will be able to get through, but by then I'll be gone. I'll circle around and come find you."

"But—"

"Aw, come on, Rey," he said. "It'll be fine. After all, I _have_ to come find you again." He grinned a second time. "It would be rude and unchivalrous to make you drag that machine all the way to the entrance by yourself."

Reyna shook her head, carefully hiding how relieved she was. "Unchivalrous isn't a word, Repair Boy," she informed him instead.

"Ah, sure it is," Leo countered. "If I make it so."

Reyna rolled her eyes. "Whatever, Valdez." She bent down and picked up her end of the rope as Leo dropped his. Hefting it over her shoulder, she straightened and turned to look at him, her expression softening before she could help herself. "Be safe, okay, Valdez?"

"'Course," Leo said. "I told you, I'll come back. It's necessary for the sake of chivalry."

With a comment as ridiculous as that one, Reyna was able to find her sarcastic mask again. "Very well, Sir Fire Hazard," she said dryly. "Be sure to hurry back. I mean . . ." She put the back of her hand to her forehead dramatically, head tipping back as she spoke in falsetto. "I'm obviously a helpless damsel in distress. I'll need you back to rescue me from the dungeon."

Reyna was rewarded by Leo's dumbfounded expression. "You . . . have a sense of humor . . ." he said in amazement.

A monster roared with bloodthirsty anger, the sound closer than Reyna would have liked. "You learn something new every day, Valdez," she said, turning away from him before he could see how nervous she was to leave him on his own. "At least, that's what I've heard. Of course, I _am_ the exception. With all of my worldly knowledge, I obviously know _everything_ already."

"Obviously." Reyna could tell from his tone that the son of Hephaestus was grinning. "See you in a bit."

Suddenly, Reyna had the urge to say something serious, to offer some last-minute advice, to part ways more formally.

She turned around to do just that.

But Leo Valdez was already gone.


	8. Part VIII

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.**

* * *

**Part VIII**

* * *

Piper stood at the railing, Percy—of all people—at her side. It was strange to see him away from Annabeth, but the daughter of Athena was working with Jason and Frank belowdecks at the moment. They were trying to harness the Athena Parthenos to a pulley system so that they could lower her to the ground once they got to Athens. Jason and Frank were flying around and over the statue, pulling ropes taut and buckling it securely in a harness. Annabeth was supervising. Nico was resting—he'd taken the night shift yesterday, and the hour of sleep he'd snuck in afterwards had obviously not been enough, so Hazel had ordered him to sleep—and the daughter of Pluto herself was feeling too airsick to leave her cabin. Coach was in his room, doing something or other. That left Piper and Percy on watch.

She tried not to stare at the older demigod, but it was hard. He'd come back from Tartarus . . . changed. Piper wasn't even talking about the occasional hallucinations; those never lasted long, as long as Annabeth was nearby, and anyway they were pretty rare. Honestly, after the things those two must have been through down there, Piper was surprised his visions weren't worse.

No, what worried Piper was the change in his personality. His eyes were duller now, and sadder, with a hidden pain that he never would have felt a few weeks ago. He didn't joke as much as he used to. His smiles were less frequent. Whatever Styx Percy and Annabeth had been through in the pits of the earth, it was weighing the son of Poseidon down. And Piper guessed that Annabeth's nightmares weren't helping either.

She had the cabin right next to Annabeth's, and she wasn't an idiot. She heard the tearful screams and banging noises from next door that came nearly every night, and she heard the quiet thuds of footsteps that pattered down the hall outside her door and rushed into Annabeth's room soon after the noises started. There would be quiet murmuring, a lengthy silence, and then the footsteps would leave again. How Percy always seemed to know when Annabeth was having a nightmare, Piper had no idea. She had thought about offering to let Percy trade rooms with her—it would be easy to clear out the few belongings she had brought on the trip, and then he would be closer to Annabeth—but eventually she decided against it. She had a feeling that Annabeth would be incredibly embarrassed if she found out that Piper knew she was having nightmares. Worse, she would also probably feel guilty for waking Piper up in the middle of the night, and that was the last thing Piper wanted. It wasn't like it was the daughter of Athena's _fault_, after all. So she did her best to ignore the nightly interruptions. They were none of her business.

"Are you nervous?" Percy asked suddenly, breaking the silence.

Piper started. "What?"

"Are you nervous about landing in Athens?"

"I . . ." Piper looked up, trying to determine what Percy would say if she told him the truth. To her surprise, he seemed worried himself. She decided that it was okay to admit her own fears. "Yeah," she said, "I am. Athens is . . . well, it's a major city, both now and in the ancient days. It was the center of Western civilization back then, the height of culture, politics, and religion. That city is a big deal. I can't even imagine what sort of monsters we'll face there. And worse . . ."

She hesitated, then forged ahead. "Gaea is supposed to sacrifice two demigods on August 1st, only ten days from now. And she's supposed to sacrifice them _in Athens_. Percy, what if she decides that Reyna isn't a good enough demigod after all? What if she decides that she needs Annabeth, Hazel, or me instead? What if we're flying straight into a trap?" She shook her head. "And even if she's _not_ planning on sacrificing us, that just means she'll want to kill us. Athens is where Gaea is supposed to rise—where her and her giants are planning on ripping down Mt. Olympus and destroying Western civilization forever. We're not going to be able to just waltz into the Parthenon, drop off the Athena Parthenos, and then _leave_. One way or another, our quest is going to end there."

Percy closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the night air. He leaned out over the railing, farther than Piper figured was safe. "Percy . . ."

Hearing the concern in her voice, he rocked back on his heels, clutching the railing to keep him steady, and opened his eyes to look at her. Piper must have looked pretty scared because then he smiled at her, one of the huge grins that always reassured her. "Don't worry," he said. "It'll be fine. We've been pulled together as the strongest demigods of the age for a reason. If anyone can defeat Gaea, we can." His eyes hardened suddenly, and he pulled Riptide out of his pocket, staring down at it as he spoke. "And you can bet your cornucopia that we _will_. I'll kick Gaea's sorry _podex_ to the end of the universe myself if I have to."

Piper looked at her shoes. "I appreciate the thought, Percy," she said softly, "but . . . how can you be so certain? If all of the giants we defeated, plus most of the monsters in Tartarus, escaped before Leo and Nico closed the Doors, that's a _lot_ of enemies to fight. Also, part of me wonders if that _storm or fire_ line from the prophecy was _really_ fulfilled when Leo closed the Doors, or if there will be another incident . . . And there's still that _final breath_ line . . . And why would the Doors of Death line be at the _end_ of the prophecy, if that was the _second_ line that we resolved?"

Percy shook his head. "I don't know, Piper," he said wearily. "Those are questions for Annabeth. I just try not to worry about prophecies, fight as hard as I can, and pray to the gods that it all works out in the end."

Piper nodded, but her thoughts were still whirling. _You say you pray to the gods,_ she wanted to tell him, _but the gods are in disarray. _They're_ the ones that need_ our _help. How can they possibly aid _us_?_

Before she could open her mouth to answer, however, something massive crashed into the bottom of the hull. Inside the ship, Piper could feel something huge sliding back and forth, crashing into walls. Percy's eyes widened. "The Parthenos . . ." he said, realization dawning. "If it's rolling around down there . . . Annabeth could be trapped underneath! She could be crushed! Oh gods . . ." He turned to race for the stairs, but Piper grabbed his wrist.

"Percy," she said in a small voice, staring straight ahead as she spoke, "Jason and Frank can take care of Annabeth. They'll fly her out, make sure the Parthenos doesn't crush her. I . . . I'm going to need you on deck with me."

"Wha—?" Percy asked. "Why . . ."

His voice died away as he realized that Piper's eyes were fixated on the sky in front of them. Slowly, he turned around.

"Oh . . ." he said. "Oh, gods . . . I—I'll stay."

"You'd better," Piper said, trying to sound confident and completely failing. "I can't defeat seven dragons all by myself."

She drew her dagger. Percy uncapped Riptide.

The dragons charged.

* * *

Immediately, Piper knew how hopeless the situation was. Percy was a fantastic fighter, but he couldn't fly up to meet the dragons. They easily swooped around just out of reach, spewing flames that burned away the canvas sails and singed the masts. Gods, Piper was missing Leo more than ever. It would have been great to have a fire-immune mechanic right now, to douse the fires cropping up all over deck, shoot his amazing new weapons at the dragons, and steer them out of danger. Annabeth would be the next best person to have on deck, but she was still stuck belowdecks somewhere. Piper didn't even know if the daughter of Athena was okay. But gods of Olympus, _none_ of them would be okay if Percy and she couldn't figure out a way to ward off these dragons.

Piper ran across the deck, dodging spurts of flame, and skidded to a halt in front of the nearest ballistae. She quickly loaded it, aimed towards a dragon, and fired.

The missile of Greek fire exploded on impact, sending the beast out of commission. It was immune to the fire itself, but the shockwave of the blast was enough to send the monster spinning out of control.

One down, six to go.

Piper loaded another missile while Percy ran to the prow and pressed the alarm button—as if any of their friends could have missed the smell of burning cloth and the shaking of explosions. She heard feet racing up the stairs and breathed a sigh of relief—maybe it was Annabeth coming to take charge, or Jason, who could fly up to attack more dragons—but before they could burst onto the deck, all Hades broke loose.

One of the dragons swooped down towards the ship—too close for Piper to hit it, for fear that the Greek fire would damage the _Argo II_ as well—and breathed fire directly on the mast. Then it veered hard to its left, whacking its thick, solid tail against the already weakened, burning pole. With a sound like the creaking of a massive, rusty drawbridge, the mast crashed to the deck, flattening the door to the stairs—and possibly crushing her friends inside as well. Piper screamed, but she hadn't even seen the worst of it. She whirled around to shoot the ballistae at that horrible dragon, but just as she fired the missile, something crashed into the port side of the hull, and the ship tilted crazily. The missile of Greek fire veered off harmlessly, exploding in the clouds instead of into a dragon . . . and Piper went flying off the deck and into the sky.

At that point, she figured it was over. She'd had a good run with her friends and found a fantastic boyfriend in Jason, but all the people who could possibly help her now were trapped somewhere in the warship. She was going to fall a thousand feet and end her life as a splat on the Ionian Sea.

Piper reached the peak of her flight, hovered for half a moment, and then started falling back towards the water. She had been planning to go out bravely, heroically, but she couldn't help herself. She screamed as she fell.

She found herself close to the height of the _Argo II_ again, watching helplessly as Percy fought two dragons at once, rolling to avoid their blasts of fire, stabbing chinks in their scales whenever he could, and cursing freely the whole time. He heard her screaming and jerked around, his eyes widening and his lips forming the first syllable of her name. Percy was distracted for the merest tenth of a second, but it was the opening one of the dragons needed to swipe its claws down Percy's back. Piper fell past the deck just in time to see the son of Poseidon crash to the ground. She yelled in despair.

Then, just as Piper was falling past the side of the ship, half of the wooden hull burst apart, the sturdy wooden boards splintering into a thousand pieces. A dragon swooped out of the ship and rose into the air, and Piper had to withhold a third shriek. _Another_ dragon? But . . . Her eyes widened. Why had a dragon been _inside_ the ship . . . unless it wasn't _really_ a dragon after all . . .

Suddenly, Piper felt arms wrap around her waist, and her descent slowed, and then stopped altogether. She leaned back, eyes shining with unshed, fearful tears, and found herself staring into Jason's blue eyes. She let out a cry of joy and twisted around, so that she could wrap her arms around her boyfriend's neck. "Jason . . ." she sobbed. "Jason . . ."

"Shhh," Jason calmed her as they rose slowly. "I know, Pipes. I know. Sorry I didn't come sooner."

"No . . ." she gasped between sobs. "You couldn't have . . . I mean, Frank _destroyed_ the hull to get you guys out . . . Leo's poor ship . . ."

Jason shrugged. "The dragons had already made several dents in it," he explained. "We could feel the ship's hull cracking. We figured that if the _Argo II_ was going to be in need of such serious repairs anyway, we might as well use the cracks to our advantage. We knew you two would need help, so Frank turned into a dragon, Annabeth, Hazel, Nico, and Coach Hedge climbed on his back, and he busted a hole through the side. He flew out, and that's when I saw you."

Piper hugged him tighter. "You saved my life," she whispered.

Jason grinned. "Hey, it's no big deal. That's what boyfriends are for."

* * *

By the time they reached the deck, most of the battle was over. Their friends had either scared off or killed all of the dragons, but the monsters had left some serious damage. Percy summoned moisture from the clouds to put out countless small fires that burned all over the deck. Frank turned into an elephant and pushed the mast off to the side, where Nico and Hazel tied it to the railing so it wouldn't roll around and crush anybody. Meanwhile, Annabeth did a damage check, using Festus to take stock of the remaining parts of the _Argo II_. As he scanned, the daughter of Athena grappled with the ship's controls and managed to execute an emergency landing on a massive, uninhabited beach somewhere in Greece. When the ship landed relatively smoothly, Piper breathed a sigh of relief. Somehow, they had all survived the attack.

Of course, her happiness was quenched as soon as Annabeth turned to give a status report to the rest of the crew. Her eyes were so stormy, Piper _knew_ the news was going to be bad.

"The flight stabilizers are in ruins," Annabeth told them, her expression grim. "There are about five small holes in the hull, plus the massive one we had to punch through. Half of the ship's communication network—it runs throughout the ship, so that Festus can keep an eye on the state of the engine and weapons and such—is disconnected. Our main mast, as you can see, has been destroyed. Our main entrance to our cabins is pulverized. This ship has needed serious repairs before, but we've never had it this bad. And now . . ." She looked down. Percy walked over to her and pulled her into a hug, and she leaned into his shoulder. "Without Leo," she whispered, "I don't even know where to start."

Percy rocked her back and forth as Annabeth burst into tears. The rest of the crew kept their distance, so Annabeth could be embarrassed as little as possible. Piper found herself pressed against Jason as well, his arms around her for support. "We'll never make it to Athens in time," she told him. She hadn't meant for her voice to be loud, but the rest of the crew turned towards her anyway. With her friends' eyes on her, all broken and helpless, Piper's strength faltered.

"I mean . . ." she began. "I . . . You know it's true." Furiously, she wiped away the tears that were springing to her eyes. "We can't fly to Athens with our ship in this condition, especially not in half a day. We won't be able to meet the deadline. Camp Jupiter . . ." She looked down, whispering the last words. "Camp Jupiter will attack Camp Half-Blood, and there will be nothing we can do about it."

* * *

**Look, fast update! Aren't you proud of me? ;)**

**This is a shorter chapter than I had planned originally, but I want to ask you guys two questions, and chapters that are solely author's notes are just annoying, so...**

**1. Do you like author's notes better when they're at the beginnings or ends of chapters? Because I saw someone who really hated it when author's notes were at the beginning, and another who hates it when they're at the end, so I was just wondering what the best place for ANs is to you.**

**2. (This question is more important.) Would you guys be okay with me using some pieces of HoH in this story? I GOT IT ON FRIDAY AND READ IT IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS OH MY GOSH THAT BOOK. But anyway, some ****demigods, uh, _achieved_****certain, ****erm, _abilities_ in HoH, and I'd like to use those abilities in this story (trying not to give away any spoilers...). I wouldn't use _all_ of the details from HoH—especially since some of them would contradict important, established information in this story :P—but I might use the ones that fit in... If you don't want me to because you haven't gotten the book yet or whatever, that's totally fine, just tell me. I think I'm going to set up a poll on my profile (perfect opportunity to figure out how those things work ;), and you can vote there or tell me in a review or PM or whatever. Thanks so much!  
**

**^Um, I hope that made sense... If it didn't, just ignore me. :)**

**Oh, and congratulations to IzzyQuagmire0907, the 100th reviewer!**

**Thanks for reading!**


	9. Part IX

**Hi guys, sorry I'm late again! I think from now on you should just expect updates to be 2 weeks apart or more... I'm just too busy, especially for the last couple of weeks, to write as much as I did during the summer... ****Anyway, thanks for your input after last chapter! I've decided that sometimes my author's notes will be at the top, and sometimes they'll be at the bottom, depending on the ending of the chapter. If it ends with a cliffhanger, I'll probably put the note at the top so—**

**Oh, I shouldn't have told you that. *coughs awkwardly* Moving on...**

**There are also going to be small HoH spoilers scattered throughout this story because, well, I need them for the storyline... (Sorry, people who didn't want any. D:) But they'll only be about things that happened in the mortal world (since canon-Tartarus is totally different from this Tartarus :P). Also, I won't include anything that completely ruins the book for people—pretty small spoilers mostly. And just because there will be things from HoH in this story doesn't mean that it isn't an AU... Because obviously it is. :P Oh, and there aren't any spoilers in this chapter. **

**Thank you so much for continuing to read and review this story, despite the slow updates and AU-ness! Hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HoO.**

* * *

**Part IX**

* * *

Reyna had been lugging the strange machine for half an eternity by the time Leo showed up again. His orange camp shirt—Leo had insisted on pulling it on over his bandages, despite its less-than-pristine condition—was even more tattered and singed. His curly hair stuck out from the bottom of his bandages wildly, as if he'd been electrocuted, and as much as he tried to hide it, Reyna suspected that he was limping.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, hurrying over to take up the other end of the rope. As soon as he started moving alongside her, the contraption became so light that Reyna felt like she could fly out of Tartarus all by herself, no machine needed. "But the army was closer than I thought. I had to take at _least_ a two-mile detour before I felt comfortable running back here. Also . . ." He looked down at his ragged clothing and frowned. "I miscalculated how far I had to swerve to get away and ran into a couple of monsters at the tail end of the army. I took care of them before they could sound the alarm, no problem, but as you can see, it required some firepower. My poor shirt . . ."

Reyna had to resist the urge to snort. If he really _was_ limping, he had far bigger problems than his shirt to worry about. In fact, he had a serious head injury, they were still stuck in Tartarus, and Octavian was going to destroy Camp Half-Blood in about a day if they couldn't stop him. He _definitely_ had far bigger problems to worry about.

Leo seemed to take her lack of a response as permission to keep talking. "Anyway, I think it looks like we're getting close. I mean, it's getting pretty difficult to drag this thing around without mowing over a family heirloom or half-empty soda can or something, so that's probably a good indication that we're getting close, right?"

Reyna nodded, deciding not to point out that she had noticed the same thing half-a-mile ago. "It's eerie," she said instead. "All these familiar objects, and no other people."

Leo shrugged. "Hey, at least there aren't any monsters, either. And you still have me." He grinned at her cheekily, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. Reyna figured he was probably unnerved by the silence as much as she was, and he was just trying to hide it.

"You should never say something like that," Reyna told him. "We're demigods. Saying stuff like that always jinxes i—"

Suddenly, a loud squeak rang out in the silence. Reyna looked back and cursed. By tugging the machine forward, they had accidentally steamrolled one of the rubber duckies.

Leo followed her eyes. "Styx," he muttered. "Maybe they didn't hear—?"

"It's the godspawn!" The roar came from closer than Reyna had anticipated—and it sounded _very_ annoyed. "Follow that noise!"

"Damn."

"I _told_ you not to say stuff like that," Reyna scolded, trying not to let panic shine through her voice. "What do we do_ now_? We can't drag this thing any faster!"

At her words, Leo's eyes widened. He looked around frantically, apparently found what he was searching for, and grinned. "Maybe we can," he said excitedly—before dropping his rope and racing off.

Reyna stared after him in exasperation. It was _just_ like him to help drag this thing for maybe five steps and then disappear again. She didn't even get an explanation this time. Sighing, Reyna turned and kept tugging the machine along, doing her best to pretend that the noise rising in the background wasn't the sound of an army of monsters.

Soon enough, the son of Hephaestus returned, a pile of green cloth in his arms. Reyna stared at it. "Do I want to know what that is?"

He was still smiling that infuriating grin. "A tent," he said, "without the poles."

"May I ask why. . .?"

"You'll see," he said. "Stop pulling for a minute and give me a hand."

Reyna just kept staring. "You want me to _stop_," she said slowly, "with an _army_ of _monsters_ at our _tails_?"

"We need to do this," he insisted. "Trust me."

_You? Trust _you_?_ Reyna wanted to shout. _You bombed my camp! You're a_ Greek! _Why in Mars's name would I trust _you? _You haven't earned my tru—_

Reyna stopped pulling. "Oh, fine," she grumbled. "What do you want me to do?"

Because Reyna was logical. She admitted the truth to herself. And the truth was, Leo had earned her trust days ago.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Reyna stared at the bubble of cloth attached to the contraption with one end of the rope. "Okay," she said slowly, "I did what you asked. Now what the Styx does that thing do?"

Leo grinned. "Watch." Before Reyna could answer, he scrambled up the side of the machine and perched on top of it. What the heck—?

As Reyna observed, he lifted up the bubble of cloth and stuck his hand inside. For a second, nothing happened. Then the inside of the tent started to glow. By the time a minute had passed, the tent was floating above the contraption and tugging at its rope.

Leo peeked his head over the side of the machine and grinned at Reyna. "Try pulling it now," he said.

Reyna realized that she had been gaping. Quickly closing her mouth, she ran to the front of the machine, grabbed her end of the rope, and started pulling.

The machine was so light, she overcalculated the amount of force she would need and nearly fell on her face. Luckily, she kept her balance—Leo never would have let her hear the end of it otherwise—and took a few steps, amazed at how easy her load suddenly was, even with Leo's added weight—although that boy was so scrawny, he probably hadn't added much.

She snuck a glance over her shoulder. Leo was grinning so broadly she thought his face might break in half. "Not bad," she admitted grudgingly. "Any chance you could get the thing to lift off the ground altogether?"

Leo hesitated, then shook his head. "Sorry, Rey. This tent isn't big enough to function as a full-size hot air balloon. The only reason we're getting _this_ much lift is because Tartarus air is a _lot_ denser than the surface's, so heating up the molecules of air inside this cloth until it has the same air density as a regular hot air balloon means that the difference between the balloon's air and the outside air is substantially higher down here than up there, therefore making . . ." He noticed Reyna's blank expression. "Um, anyway, this is the best I can do."

Reyna nodded. "All right. In that case, hang on tight."

Leo stared at her. "What are you going to—?"

Reyna adjusted the rope over her shoulder, took a deep breath, and started running.

The machine bounced along behind her, crushing countless objects and sending up an alarm signal as to where they were, but Reyna figured the time for stealth was over. The monsters _already_ knew where they were. Speed was the most important thing now.

"Holy . . . Heph . . . stus . ." Leo said between bumps. He was gripping the edge of the machine for dear life with one hand while his other stayed stuck inside the makeshift balloon, keeping it aloft with his fire. "Gods . . . of . . . Olympus . . . Sweet . . . mother . . . f—" A particularly violent jolt nearly sent him flying before he could finish. "_Styx_," he yelled when they landed. "_Holy Styx, Rey! Could you try to AVOID KILLING ME next time?"_

"Keep your voice down," Reyna hissed. "They can probably hear you on the other side of hell right now."

"It's too late for that," Leo responded, jerking his head in the direction of the destruction behind them. "The other side of hell _definitely_ heard all _that_." But he kept his cursing relatively quiet from then on.

Reyna wasn't sure how long she spent running over other people's stuff. Even when her legs started to burn, and her lungs started to ache from breathing in too much dense, rotten air, she continued sprinting, pushing herself harder and harder. The image that kept her going was the same picture that had haunted her nightmares on and off for weeks—the Greek camp in ruins, the bodies of countless Greek campers and her own legionnaires spread everywhere, their blood thickening over the grass, dirt swirling up to create a massive earth woman taller than a giant, her face stretched in a grotesque smile and her eyes . . . her eyes _open_. Reyna couldn't help but remember what Gaea had told Leo. _When August 1st is over, and I have won, Greeks and Romans will be together at last. War doesn't discriminate, godspawn. Both Greeks _and_ Romans will die that day. Their blood will mix on the battlefield. And their souls will mingle in the Underworld. _The goddess's words spun around in Reyna's head, goading her on, pushing her to even faster speeds. Gaea's words would _not_ come true. Her legion would _not_ attack the Greeks. Their blood would _not_ be spilled on Camp Half-Blood. By the gods, Greeks and Romans _would_ form an alliance, if it was the last thing Reyna did.

"Reyna?" Reyna ignored Leo and kept running. _"Reyna! PRAETOR REYNA CONCESSI OF THE TWELFTH LEGION FULMINATA!"_

That was enough to pull her short. Leo had jokingly called her "Praetor" before, but he had never used her full title. Reyna skidded to a halt and turned to stare at the Greeks' most clever repair boy. "What?" she asked, speaking between pants of air. "What the _Styx_ . . . so important . . . you'd want to stop us . . . from getting . . . there . . . fast as possible?"

Leo laughed and extinguished the fire in his hand. The hot air balloon drooped down around him. "Only one thing," he said, poking his head out from underneath the piles of fabric and pointing in the air with his newly flame-free hand. "Look up, Praetor."

Reyna humored him and lifted her head. She was met with a sight that made her mouth drop open with amazement—a dark hole that rose indefinitely above their heads, even higher than the cavern's ceiling.

They were here.

* * *

For a while, Reyna just stared upwards, catching her breath.

"Holy Bellona," she whispered eventually, once she had recovered enough to speak in complete sentences. "We actually made it this far."

She probably would have stood there, mesmerized by the endless darkness, until the monster army caught up to her and captured her again, but Leo shook her out of it. "What?" he asked in mock pain, sliding off the machine. "Are you saying you doubted me?"

Reyna smiled and shook her head as she helped Leo untie the balloon. "Not for a moment," she lied smoothly.

"That's okay," Leo said, lifting the cloth off of the machine and dropping it unceremoniously onto the ground. "I doubted me too."

Reyna snorted. "And you're only just telling me now."

Leo opened his mouth to respond, but Reyna cut him off. "Anyway," she said, turning back to the machine, "you never told me how this thing is supposed to take us all the way back to the surface." She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "It can't even _fly_."

At that, Leo grinned broadly. "I never said _that_," he said. "Look." He opened the door into the inside of the machine and withdrew . . .

"_Helicopter blades?_" Reyna asked incredulously. "Are you telling me this thing is a _helicopter_?"

Leo turned away from her and started attaching the blades, carefully avoiding her gaze. "Okay," he said slowly, "I know that it's kind of a weird shape because I had to make it out of scraps, but that's no reason to—"

Reyna couldn't help but laugh. "I'm not _insulting_ its _appearance_, Valdez," she told him. "I don't give a _Styx_ what it looks like, as long as it works. I just . . ." Her laughter died out, and she frowned. "I just don't understand why we didn't start flying it the second you finished. We could have flown and gotten here an hour ago—without all of the noise! Why did you make me drag it all this way?" By the time her rant was over, Reyna was thoroughly annoyed. Her calves were still burning, after all.

Then Leo finished with the copter blades and faced her again, and Reyna lost her frustration immediately. He just . . . Leo was _always_ joking, _always_ had a blinding grin on his face. Seeing him like this tugged at Reyna's heart strangely. Seeing him so . . . _pained_. Upset. Remorseful.

. . . _Sad_.

Reyna's frown deepened. "Leo," she whispered, "what's wrong?"

Leo looked at the ground. "You asked me why we couldn't just fly this helicopter immediately," he said. "The problem is, my belt would only give me so much fuel. According to my estimations, we only _barely_ have enough gas for two trips out of here. We didn't have enough spare to fly this thing the whole time."

Reyna furrowed her eyebrows. "But . . ." she said slowly, "we only need enough gas for _one_ trip. . . ."

Suddenly, a horrible suspicion started to form in her brain. "Leo," she gasped, "you couldn't . . . you wouldn't . . ."

She ran to the helicopter and looked inside. What she saw confirmed her fear.

She turned to the repair boy that she had gotten so close to over the last few days. "Leo Valdez," she said, voice strong and brittle as glass, "why is there only one seat?"

* * *

Reyna expected her question to make Leo feel guilty, maybe make him bubble into an incoherent apology. Instead, he straightened up and stared at Reyna with eyes as hard as her voice. When he spoke, his words were clear, articulate, and strong. "When Gaea told us that we only had three days to get to Camp Half-Blood, I knew," he told her. "I had been planning on constructing a helicopter big enough for both of us, but I knew that would take too much time. I modified my original design, gave it a single-person capacity instead. It was faster to build, and the final product is lighter, meaning that it will be more efficient, and the fuel will take it farther with each gallon. Honestly, I should have designed it this way to begin with."

Reyna couldn't stand how emotionless his words were. "But Leo," she said, fighting back a flow of useless, stupid tears before they could emerge, "you've been lying to me all this time! You told me . . . you said . . ."

For the first time, Leo looked shocked. "I never lied to you, Reyna," he said. "I was careful never to lie to you. I told you I'd get you of here before those three days were up. I told you I'd make sure you made it to New York so you could stop Octavian. And that's exactly what I'm about to do."

"Leo," Reyna said in exasperation, "you say that. But how do you know that the monsters won't catch up and capture me again while you're going first an—"

_"Whoa!"_ Leo actually held up his hand and peered at her, looking even more surprised than before, if that were possible. "Who said _I_ was going first?"

His words froze the next sentence on Reyna's tongue. She gaped at him, staring blankly. She had just assumed . . . since he'd been the one who came up with the plan in the first place . . .

She thought back to the very first conversation they'd had about escape.

_Just you watch,_ Leo had told her. _I'll get you out of here. This escape plan _will_ work. You're praetor, after all. If you show up alive and well, you can stop them from destroying my camp. In fact, you can get Romans and Greeks to work together._

Oh gods . . . he had said he would get _her_ out of here. _She_ would show up alive and well. _She_ would . . . not _they_ would.

He had _known_ he would be left behind _this entire time_. And he had helped her escape anyway.

It was funny. A minute ago, she had been all riled up, ready to argue that she should be the one to go first. But now that she realized Leo felt the same way . . .

Suddenly, Reyna found her voice. "No," she said, head held high. Leo stopped fiddling with something in his tool belt and looked at her, his eyes unreadable. "No," she repeated. "Leo, you heard me earlier, when you told me you would go off and create a distraction. I told you I wasn't going to leave you down here. That's still true. I'm _not_."

At that, Leo crossed his arms. "And _I_ told you that I would catch up to you later, it was only temporary, and I'm not that heroic." He offered the smallest hint of a smile. "That's still true too."

For the first time, Reyna understood why Leo hadn't been smiling properly the last few days—why his grins had been small or hadn't reached his eyes. Gods, no wonder he had been acting so strangely. He had known the helicopter only held one passenger.

"But . . ." She didn't say what was on her mind. _But what if it's_ not _temporary? Gods of Olympus, Valdez, stop being an idiot. You might not have lied to me, but you're sure as Styx lying to yourself. You're more gods-damned heroic than I am._

She would've—in the name of Bellona, she would've—except that it offered the possibility that his extended time down here wouldn't be temporary. And Reyna knew the sacrifice Leo was preparing to make was hard enough as it was. She didn't need to make him think it wouldn't be temporary.

Instead, she shook her head. "This is wrong," she insisted. "_You_ should be the one to go first."

Leo half-smiled again. "No, I shouldn't," he said. "Don't you remember our discussion about chivalry? I'm _determined_ to be chivalrous, you know . . . and one of the most chivalrous expressions _ever_ is 'ladies first', Praetor."

For some reason, his weak attempt at humor made Reyna want to cry. He was just . . . Oh gods, _he_ was the one putting himself in extended danger, and he was trying to cheer _her_ up. Reyna was sure now. Leo Valdez was too good.

She blinked away her tears before Leo could see. "Damn you and your chivalry," she said, her voice harsh so she wouldn't start crying again. "You _know_ you should be the one to go. You built this thing, you came up with the escape plan, _and_ you've been in here longer. It's only fair."

Reyna's argument didn't seem to convince the repair boy at all. In fact, it just made him look more determined. The son of Hephaestus shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the machine in front of him. "Fair has nothing to do with it, Praetor," he said stiffly. "I don't have a _chance_ of convincing Octavian to stand down, but _you_ do. When you come back, it'll be like their praetor has come back from the dead. They wouldn't listen to me, but they'll sure as Hades listen to you."

Reyna took a deep breath, steadying herself from the shock still reeling through her. "But. . . ." She hesitated. "I don't _do_ public speaking, Leo. I'm _Styx_ at it compared to Octavian. How in Mars's name am I going to override his influence and convince my legion, _especially_ without any proof?"

At that, Leo finally turned to face her. Reyna was surprised to see how steely his expression was. "But you _do_ have proof, Praetor," he said, reaching into his tool belt. "I _told_ you I'd give you proof, remember?"

Honestly, she didn't—remember, that is. Hey, she'd had a _lot_ to take in over the past couple of days. So when Leo pressed a small metal device into her hands, Reyna stared at it blankly. "What is this?"

Slowly, a _full_ grin broke out over Leo's face. It still wasn't as blinding as his usual smiles, but gods of Olympus, it was a _huge_ improvement from the weak half-grins he had been giving her lately. "Oh," he said casually, "it's nothing. Just a small digital recorder that I built right before I got Gaea to tell you about my innocence and the fact that she orchestrated your disappearance to make your legion distrust my friends even _more_ than they already did."

He said the words in one quick breath, so that it took a moment for Reyna to process them. When she did, her eyes widened in spite of herself. "_You recorded that entire conversation?_" she asked in amazement.

A small smile still lingered on Leo's face. "Yeah, I did. Pretty smart for a lowly repair boy, right?"

Reyna nodded, not trusting herself to speak. When Leo saw her expression, his smile disappeared. Hesitantly, he reached out and closed Reyna's fingers around the recorder, clearing his throat as he moved. "So," he said roughly, "I guess you need to get going if you want to make it in time. Remember to send the device back down to me as soon as you're safely in the Underworld, so I can ride it up next, but by the gods, _don't wait for me_. Every second is precious right now. Don't waste a single one on me, okay?" He blinked and looked downwards. "I'm not worth it."

Reyna knew Leo was right about every second being precious—gods, she definitely knew he was right—but still, something made her pause. She couldn't just leave—not without acknowledging the strange bond they'd formed down here in the pits of hell. Not without thanking him for being so smart and selfless and wonderful. She couldn't walk away and pretend none of that had ever happened—because _gods_, it did, and without Reyna wanting it to, it had changed her. She had to convey that to Leo _somehow_.

Leo noticed her hesitation. "Go on, Praetor," he said quietly. "Get in."

At those simple words, something in Reyna broke—some dam, some barrier that she hadn't even known had existed. Without meaning to, she bridged the gap between them and threw her arms around Leo's neck, hugging him to her. His arms were awkwardly smashed into Reyna's ribs, and his chin was digging into her shoulder blade, but Reyna didn't give a Styx. For the first time in ages—maybe even in Reyna's entire life—she didn't mind physical contact. In fact, she had initiated it herself, and _it had made her happier._ Holy Bellona, what was happening to her?

After probably a second too long, she drew back and scrutinized Leo's expression, which was pretty much all shock. Feeling a need to lighten the painful mood, she risked smiling at him, the brightest smile she could offer in this hellhole.

"Come on, Leo," she said. "We've been over this. We're long past the 'Praetor' stage."

Leo laughed. It was a small choking sound that Reyna never would have expected to come out of the repair boy's mouth, but in this situation, it seemed to fit. The laugh matched _exactly_ the way Reyna was feeling.

Out of nowhere, Leo offered her a hug of his own, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her against him. Reyna laced her arms around Leo's neck again, and in the two seconds they held that position, she felt something shift in the air between them. Something electric, tingling, and totally foreign to her.

Too quickly, Leo let go and took a step back, grinning at her crookedly. "Go on ahead, _mi reina_," he said, almost too softly to hear.

Reyna blinked twice in astonishment at the new nickname, but then quickly hid her surprise with her best attempt at a smile. She climbed into the machine, choking down the fresh round of tears that was threatening to overwhelm her. "Better," she said to him, carefully holding eye contact to ingrain the moment into her memory. She wanted to remember this. She wanted to remember _him_. Just in case.

After a few seconds of silence, Leo looked away and started fiddling with some controls on the outside of the contraption. He was close enough to touch, so Reyna did. She reached out and caught his hand before he could step backwards.

"I'll see you in a bit," she insisted, checking his eyes for confirmation.

He nodded.

"_Nos vemos pronto de nuevo, mi chico fuego_," she told him.

She watched his mouth stretch into a surprised—but pleased—smile as she drifted upwards.

_We'll meet again soon, my fire boy_.

* * *

Leo watched the dark metallic helicopter until it merged with the darkness. The farther Reyna rose, the wider his smile grew. Yes, he was still in Tartarus, but not for very much longer. And anyway, Reyna was on her way out, recorder in hand, armor fastened, courage and strength worn like a shield. Leo had faith in her—he knew she would be able to convince her legion to stand down. Their camps were safe. Everything would be fin—

Suddenly, Leo heard a crash, and a string of Greek curses echoed through Tartarus. "Confound these idiotic mortals!" someone—no, some_thing_—shouted. "Their junk even infects _our_ domain!"

"Confound these idiotic _demigods_," another thing countered. "_They're_ the ones who are forcing us to wade through this mortal filth!"

"You're right," the first thing said. "When we get those two back, I'll torture them until they _want_ August 1st to come! Until they're _praying_ for death!"

"Oh, by then they won't be praying," a third thing snickered. "They'll know the gods abandoned them a long time ago."

The first thing started to laugh, and before long, the noise that filled the air was so loud, Leo guessed there were at least fifty monsters in the pack. "It's a good thing they were dragging something heavy," the second thing said eventually, once they had all calmed down. "These crushed mortal artifacts make the perfect trail to follow. We'll catch up to those demigods in no time!"

Leo froze. They sounded . . . oh gods, they sounded so close—maybe a mile away at most. _Styx_.

Leo had no idea how long it would take his improvised helicopter to reach the Underworld and come back down, but he knew that the monsters would find him first . . . _especially _if he stayed here. . . . With sudden conviction, Leo turned and started sprinting in a random direction, with no real purpose other than to get away—but then a thought pulled him short.

If the monsters were following his contraption's trail through the debris, it would lead them straight to the entrance/exit from/to the Underworld. They would know _exactly_ where Reyna was headed, and if Gaea's forces were as thick on the surface as she claimed—and Leo was sure they were—Mother Earth would have no problem assembling an army to capture Reyna before she ever made it to her legion. All their escape efforts would be in vain, and Reyna would just end up in Tartarus again—probably separated from him this time. The world would fall anyway, and it would be all fire's fault.

Unless—

Leo hesitated, but he quickly shook aside his indecision. Even if he_ did_ disappear into Tartarus now, there was no guarantee that Gaea's army wouldn't catch up to him anyway. In fact, they almost certainly would. Running away, like he'd done in the past so many times, wouldn't solve his problem, and besides that, it would be incredibly selfish and probably result in the destruction of Western civilization.

It was time for the repair boy to fix this situation.

His decision made, Leo whirled around and dashed back to the black hole to the surface. When he reached the right spot, the first thing he did was gather up the objects his helicopter had crushed and scatter whole ones in their place, concealing the trail they had left behind. After he had covered the last hundred feet, he picked up the crushed items and started a false trail that veered to the left instead of continuing straight ahead. When he ran out of objects, he found a refrigerator that had somehow ended up in Tartarus and started dragging them behind him instead, creating a trail that looked almost exactly like the one his helicopter had made. All the while, he heard the shouts of the monsters slowly coming closer and closer. Styx, Styx, _Styx_ . . .

Eventually, Leo figured that he was far enough away from the black hole that the monsters wouldn't suspect that Reyna had escaped that way. Then, in a sudden burst of inspiration, he blasted fire at the refrigerator until it was a half-melted mess, unwrapped his head bandages, and smeared his blood all over the still-warm metal. He stood back, looked at his handiwork, and decided it wouldn't be enough. After quickly rewrapping his head, he pulled his orange shirt over his head, unrolled his purple bandages, and added blood from his back to the refrigerator as well. For good measure, he walked forward several steps, allowing his back's blood to drip onto the ground with each step—gods, he was a mess—and kicked around the objects as he walked to make it look like there had been a struggle. He ended the path by ripping off the end of his camp shirt (it wasn't hard; the thing was practically in shreds anyway) and dropping it haphazardly on top of a bunny slipper. Then he tore off the end of his purple bandages and left that a couple feet away, still covered in blood. He wrapped his bandages around himself as best he could, yanked on what was left of his shirt, and—for the final effect—pulled a hammer out of his belt, dabbled blood onto the head, let loose a bloodcurdling scream, and dropped his hammer onto a frying pan with a clang.

"Reyna!" he yelled. "No—you nasty—filthy—pile of _schist_—come back here—with—_mi reina_—stop—come back—_Argh! Ah! REYNA! STOP! NO! AH! OUCH! REYNA! REYNA! NO! STO—_"

He cut off his screams purposefully, and, work done, he started to run off. But before he could get more than forty feet, a massive stalagmite loomed up out of the darkness, and as Leo swerved to get around it—

Something yanked Leo by his tool belt, and he fell backwards and smacked his head on the very rock he'd been trying to avoid.

The next thing Leo had knew, he was on the ground, eyes only half-focused, staring up blearily at a humanoid figure.

"_Where's the other one_?" the monster growled.

For a moment, Leo considered grabbing the mixing bowl at his side and chucking it at the monster's head. Once he was distracted and possibly knocked out, Leo could get around him . . . maybe escape him completely . . .

Then another figure crowded into Leo's vision. "Answer the question, godspawn!" it grumbled. "_Where's the other one_?"

Other monsters started to push and shove the first two, jostling for space to jeer down at him. There were so many, it made Leo dizzy just trying to count them all. He gulped. One mixing bowl wasn't going to cut it.

"_Where's the other one_?"

Leo thought of Reyna, hovering somewhere between Tartarus and the surface, rising slowly towards the latter, trusting him to get her there safely. Reyna, trusting him. Reyna, hugging him. Reyna, calling him her _chico fuego_.

_La reina de la legión_, not minding when he made her _his_ queen instead. Smiling about it, even.

He wasn't about to let down _su reina_ now.

"_Where's the other one_?"

Leo forced tears to leak out of his eyes and his voice to sound choked, which wasn't hard. "Gone," he gasped out. "Taken . . . dragon . . ." He closed his eyes, seemingly reliving the moment. Instead, he was envisioning the face of a certain beautiful praetor of Rome. "So much blood . . ." he whispered. "And then the dragon . . ." He shook his head, wincing convincingly as he spoke—mostly because shaking his head really did hurt. "_Dioses malditos_," he said with a dry sob. "_Mi reina es muerta_."

As Leo spoke, he knew that this lie wouldn't stop Gaea forever. She would find out that Reyna was really alive sooner or later, and then probably destroy him for lying to her. But he didn't care. He only prayed that his words _were_ a lie—that his helicopter had worked perfectly, and Reyna was really on the surface right now, convincing her legion to stop their violence. If she could stop the civil war—if she could stay alive—then this sacrifice would be worth it.

The first monster growled in frustration. "The mistress won't be pleased with this. And anyway, I wanted to pulverize them _both_."

"Don't worry," the second monster consoled. "We've still got this one."

Suddenly, Leo remembered the threatening words of the monsters. The ones that the _empousae_ had hissed, and the words that monster had shouted just after Reyna had disappeared.

_Even think about escaping, and you'll_ beg _for another whipping as lenient as the last one._

_I'll torture them until they _want _August 1st to come! Until they're _praying _for death!_

_The mistress won't be pleased._

Leo gulped.

It was _really _over now. These monsters were going to do everything in their power to break him. And if they didn't, Gaea would.

_Styx._


End file.
